Respect for the Torah and for Torah Books IV
- It is forbidden to sit on a chair or a bench on which seforim
have been placed unless something, no matter how thin, was placed beneath
them. - It is forbidden to place seforim on the floor
(upright or lying down) unless they are raised above the ground a tefach,
though where there is no choice, even the slightest elevation is adequate.
- Seforim
in a plastic bag should not be placed on the
ground, but they may be placed on the ground if they are in a hard
container. - According to the Kehilos Yaakov, when a bench is
divided, a person may sit on one section of the bench even though seforim
lie on another section. He also writes that if a person is sitting on a
bench and someone else places seforim on it, he is not required to
get up from the bench because the person who placed the seforim down
violated his space. - A sefer has kedushah even before anyone learns
from it. Once someone learns from it, it acquires a very high level of
kedushah. - Can a person go into a rest room with a sefer in
his pocket? On this matter there is disagreement. Some hold that it is
sufficient to enclose the sefer in a single pocket (covering). Others
hold that it has to have a double pocket, of which one may be transparent. - A sefer should not be used as a pillow. Seforim
should not be used for personal benefit, and, besides, the sefer may
be soiled. - If a person uses part of a sheet of paper to write divrei
Torah, he should not use the remaining space to write something that is
secular. But it seems that if he wrote on it on the condition that he could
use the remaining part of the page to write something secular, it is
allowed. - When an inheritance is being divided up, seforim
should not be exchanged for something of little worth.