A scribe today has an exhaustive list of rules for how each letter ought to look – here’s an example for letter shin, from the Mishnah Berurah: Shin has three heads. The first head, with the leg which is drawn out of it, is like a vav, and its face is tilted slightly upwards. The […]
I’ve talked a bit about how it’s okay to fix mistakes, in most circumstances. The sages were well aware that when you copy a document, and then copy from the copy, and so on, mistakes are likely to creep in over time. This is why we have a rule that even one mistake in a […]
(Meant to post this last week, sorry.) Leviticus 19:23–And when ye shall come into the land, and shall have planted all manner of trees for food, then ye shall count the fruit thereof as forbidden; three years shall it be as forbidden unto you; it shall not be eaten. Except in our sefer it’s more […]
We reached a halfway point this week; 122.5 columns of 245. As it happens, 245 is also the number of words in the Shema (full text here). The Shema is the cornerstone of the liturgy; the Torah is the cornerstone of the religion. The Shema says, bring God into all your doings; the Torah is […]
Following on a bit from last week’s post, here are a few of the other things this sefer contains. Descriptions are mine, not hallowed by tradition.
When we look at words in the Torah scroll, we notice unusual decorations on the letters. What are they? Why are they there? A very few seconds’ thought tells us that they are not vowels or cantillation, the more usual “decorations” of Hebrew letters. The fourth-generation amora Rava states [Men 29b]: There are seven letters […]
The main thing about Torah ink is that it has to be black and it has to stay black. If it changes colour within fifty years, it wasn’t kosher to begin with. Generally, Torah ink (דיו, in Hebrew, like dye) is what’s called an iron gall ink. Iron gall inks have been used in a […]
Exodus 28:36, a verse from this week’s parsha; ועשית ציץ זהב טהור… “Make a tzitz of pure gold…” Go look it up. In some sifrei Torah, the final tzaddi of the word ציץ is writ large, including in the sefer I’m presently writing: Here’s another one, from a different sefer (presently in Berlin; my last […]
Today’s parchment: a bit smooth and slippy, so I want to treat it with gum sanderac before writing. It’s a resin that you grind finely and rub into the parchment. Grinding gum sandarac in a cereal bowl with a spoon is annoying, because so much of the gum sandarac sticks to the surface of the […]
This morning I’m writing chapter 14 of Exodus: And Moses stretched out his hand, and a strong wind blew all night, and dried up the sea. And the children of Israel came into the sea on dry land, and [this bit is recited with the special tune for the Song of the Sea] the waters […]
