This is not so unusual.
I met someone from Yemen, who told me that when he was in yeshiva growing up, they were so poor, that they only had one gemara for every 4 boys.
Each boy stood at one of the sides of the gemara: left, right, up, down.
When they grew up, they *continued* to learn from a gemara from the same side they were used to, even though they had a gemara of their own. I met an upside-down person, i.e. he read the gamara upside down.
There’s a famous story of someone coming to collect tzedaka from a gvir. When he arrived, he was asked to wait in the study. While waiting, he took a gemara and started learning. When the gvir came back, he saw this person learning with the gemara upside down, and was suspicious. Then the person explain that he grew up in Yemen, and was one of those that stood at the top of the gemara.
When I told this story to a friend of mine, he said he once met a right-side Yemenite, i.e. he read the gemara from the right side.
It could be he was a home-aid for one of the elderly people in the community. Nothing unusual.
The other guys there also have the gemara upside down.
עולם הפוך
and…
This is not so unusual.
I met someone from Yemen, who told me that when he was in yeshiva growing up, they were so poor, that they only had one gemara for every 4 boys.
Each boy stood at one of the sides of the gemara: left, right, up, down.
When they grew up, they *continued* to learn from a gemara from the same side they were used to, even though they had a gemara of their own. I met an upside-down person, i.e. he read the gamara upside down.
There’s a famous story of someone coming to collect tzedaka from a gvir. When he arrived, he was asked to wait in the study. While waiting, he took a gemara and started learning. When the gvir came back, he saw this person learning with the gemara upside down, and was suspicious. Then the person explain that he grew up in Yemen, and was one of those that stood at the top of the gemara.
When I told this story to a friend of mine, he said he once met a right-side Yemenite, i.e. he read the gemara from the right side.
Maybe he heard someone say “punct farkert!”, and he thought that meant he should turn his sefer in the opposite direction. Happens to me all the time.
And it could be in his class there were 4 boys per Gemara and he always looked in upside down.
Looks like Eli hanovi to me.
Maybe shliach to Bed/sty.
Or someone thirsty for some old fashion toyra.
Nothing unusual.
Too many times we have seen terrorists put on yarmulkes and commit shooting rampages.
And filing past an empty chair saying lechayim to it is not unusual?
And do we need to answer a question with another question?