Bema

The bema, or bima, is an elevated platform used as an orator's podium in ancient Athens. In Jewish synagogues, it is also known as a bimah and is for Torah reading during services. In an Orthodox Jewish synagogue, a bema is the raised area around the aron kodesh, or the sanctuary. In antiquity it was made of stone, but in modern times it is usually a rectangular wooden platform approached by steps.

The Ancient Greek bema (βῆμα) means both ‘platform’ and ‘step’, being derived from (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.

The bimah (Hebrew plural: bimot) in synagogues is also known as the almemar or almemor among some Ashkenazim (from the Arabic, al-minbar, meaning ‘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 proposed link to the Biblical Hebrew bama (בּמה), ‘high place’ is far less likely.)

Among the Sephardim, it is known as a tevah (literally ‘box, case’ in Hebrew) or migdal-etz (‘tower of wood’).

It is typically elevated by two or three steps, as was the bimah in the Temple. At the celebration of the Shavuot holiday when synagogues are decorated with flowers, many synagogues have special arches that they place over the bimah and adorn with floral displays. 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. A raised bimah will typically have a railing. This was a religious requirement for safety in bimah more than 10 handbreadths high, or between 83 and 127 centimetres (2.72 and 4.17 ft). A lower bimah (even one step) will typically have a railing as a practical measure to prevent someone from inadvertently stepping off.

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