Something you do not need to see when you open tefillin: BUGS. The vacated exoskeletons of bugs, I grant you (note the hole in the centre one where the bug burst its way out), but still, ick. At least a dozen of them. Perhaps surprisingly, the klafim were ok, once I’d brushed the crumbled bugs [...]
I write Torah scrolls for congregations, and part of my job is working closely with the congregation to make appropriate programming. Such as, for instance, an opening ritual. A good ritual starts by speaking to who the community is, and inspires them with a vision of who they want to be. My job as the [...]
You’re not supposed to write your name on the back of a sefer Torah, just in case you were wondering. What *is* this? And what is it doing scribbled on the back of a sefer torah? By the way, if anyone can decipher these, I’d be delighted to hear about it. I really do wonder [...]
I love RG. RG has been coming to Apprentice with a Sofer on Tuesday nights. She doesn’t count herself as valid to work on a sefer Torah (because she holds that men and women have different halakhic capabilities) so every time we do a new thing, she asks me “Can I do this? Can I [...]
Here’s a video featuring a very tiny totally kosher Torah scroll. The video’s more concerned with the accoutrements, a little aron kodesh and the usual silver ornaments for a Torah scroll, than with the scroll itself. They’re made by Bezalel School-trained artist Shuki Freiman, and they are breathtakingly beautiful, utterly and completely. Seeing them is [...]
My beloved student Julie has been writing a Torah in San Francisco at the Contemporary Jewish Museum for the past year, and once she’d finished writing (yay) it came time to sew it together and have a bit of an Event. So I went out there to help with the sewing and to be part [...]
This Purim, I was commissioned to write a megillah for the Abramson Center for Jewish Life, and not just create a megillah, but also a case for it to live in. The Center’s rabbi asked if I could make a design that drew on the Center’s existing artwork, and that’s what you see above. The [...]
In honour of its being Adar, I give you Dog Torah. I have a puppy. Parts of her are tan-coloured like parchment, and parts of her are black and shiny like Torah ink. She likes to squirm around on the couch. I am a sofer stam. Now read on…
Tuesday night, I was teaching at my scribe school, as is my wont on Tuesday nights. Three-quarters of the room was speaking Yiddish. Now, I posted recently about the surreal experience of being at a party of young, egal-type Jews where three-quarters of the room was speaking Yiddish. That was strange, yes. But having three-quarters [...]
I get these by email every so often. 1. What is your favorite part of your job? If you’re very lucky, in your life you’ll find an activity – maybe something physical, or intellectual, or creative, or none of those – that is just *right* for you. When you start doing it, everything feels good [...]
