QUESTION

Maryland

We are reading Megillat Rut from a klaf for the first time this year. The Ba’al Koreh told me he would like to say the berakhot of mikrah megillah and shehechiyanu. I thought this was not widely practiced and I was wondering your guidance on the matter.

ANSWER

I am fine making the berakhot when read from a klaf. I think what is not widely practiced is to read it from a klaf. My sense is that the places that do so, do it with a brakha. (See Rema SA OH 390:9, Mishnah Berurah 390:19)

This is true for those places that are following minhag ha’Gra (Mishnah Berurah 390:19, Ma’aseh Rav 275), which have been the places I’ve been where it’s been done. Some places do it not in the context of minhag ha’Gra and do not make a brakha. To be following minhag haGra and making a brakha, you should be doing it consistently for all the megillot. If your plan is to do it for all once you raise the money, etc., then that’s fine and you can start making the brakha now. But if you are only doing it for Ruth, it would seem to me that it’s being done more as a hiddur than as minhag ha’Gra, and you should not make a brakha.