This is the gesture corresponding to pashta ("stretcher, extension"), as reconstructed by me. It is the mirror image of merkha, and has a related musical meaning. Just as merkha represents the second degree of the basic scale, so pashta represents a major or minor second interval above the sustained degree represented by the right hand. Thus, in the photo on the left, the left hand is producing a gesture representing silluq or E, while the right hand is producing a gesture representing pashta: a rise on one syllable to F or F# (depending on the musical mode being used). The effect is indeed one of melodic extension -- all the more when pashta is doubled on a word following a sublinear degree (especially the 6th degree, mehuppakh).

Updated July 23, 2010