It is, in the grand scheme of things, a very minor point, but it bothers me.
Cohanim who attend Sephardim and Mizrachim congregations for morning prayers go up to the hakel (ark) for birkat haCohanim, the blessing HaShem ordered the cohanim to recite over Am Israel. (Sephardim and Mizrachim assume that means every day and twice -a-day if there is a musaf service; not just Yom Kippor or just haggim, but every day - Shabat and yom hol, haggim and hol hamoed.
I confess I sometimes look around when I ought not be looking around. The Moroccan tradition is that we cast our eyes downward while the cohanim face us.
As I looked around I saw several people either turning their back to the cohanim or turning their side to the cohamin.
I learned that as the cohanim recite the bless we are to face the cohanim. Turning to the side or turning our back to them negates the blessing.
Today, hol hamoed Sukot, I started looking for a source to either support my tradition or to enlighten me otherwise.
I am blessed with a small library and I checked the Moroccan sources first.
Nothing.
I checked a couple of sidurim.
Ditto.
Finally I found a source in a sedur called Tefelat Yasharim - published by Yakov Mansour in Jerusalem.
In very small print I found
והיו פני העם כנגד הכהנים ולא יביטו עליהם, והעמדים אחריה כהנים או בצדדים כל שאין עומדים באויר אשר מכנגד הכהנים ואילך אינם בכלל הברכה
In other words, if you are standing behind the cohanim (or otherwise have your back to them) or if you have your side toward the cohanim, you don't get the blessing.
This has nothing to do with covering your head with a tallit as many men do, or putting a sidur in front of your eyes as some women do; it only addresses how we stand during the Torah-required blessing.
Many Sephardim, mostly Moroccans, do not cover their heads; many Mizrachim and some Sephardim do cover their heads, and all cover their children's heads, even when their children are adults and the father has - as I must - stand "one row higher" to reach their heads.
As apropos of nothing, while in search of the answer to my "face the cohen" query, I discovered that in some parts of Morocco - Marrakesh - people do not answer "Bruk hu ..." when HaShem's name is mentioned in the cohanic blessing, while in other places in Morocco - Casablanca - they do answer "Bruk hu..."
The Internet is a wonderful thing, but until it has every book converted to bits and bytes, I'll treasure the paper in my small library.
