Bema

A bema was an elevated platform used as an orator's podium in ancient Athens. The term can refer to the raised area in a sanctuary. In Jewish synagogues, where it is used for Torah reading during services, the term used is bima or bimah. The Ancient Greek bēma (βῆμα) means both 'platform' and 'step', being derived from bainein (βαίνειν, 'to go'). The original use of the bema in Athens was as a tribunal from which orators addressed the citizens as well as the courts of law, for instance, in the Pnyx. In Greek law courts the two parties to a dispute presented their arguments each from separate bemas. By metonymy, bema was also a place of judgement, being the extension of the raised seat of the judge, as described in the New Testament, in and , and further, as the seat of the Roman emperor, in , and of God, in , when speaking in judgment. Synagogue#Bimah (platform) The post-Biblical Hebrew bima (בּימה), 'platform' or 'pulpit', is almost certainly derived from the Ancient Greek word for a raised platform, bema (βῆμα). A philological link to the Biblical Hebrew bama (בּמה), 'high place' has been suggested. The bimah (Hebrew plural: bimot) in synagogues is also known as the almemar or almemor among some Ashkenazis (from the Arabic, al-minbar, meaning 'platform'). Among Sephardic Jews it is known as a tevah (literally 'box, case' in Hebrew) or migdal-etz ('tower of wood'). The importance of the bimah is to show that the reader is the most important at that moment in time, and to make it easier to hear their reader of the Torah. The bimah became a standard fixture in synagogues from which the weekly Torah portion (parashah) and the haftarah are read. In antiquity the bimah was made of stone, but in modern times it is usually a rectangular wooden platform approached by steps. The synagogue bimah is typically elevated by two or three steps, as was the bimah in the Temple. A raised bimah will typically have a railing. This was a religious requirement for safety in bimah more than 10 handbreadths high, or between .