Tag Archives: torah scrolls

Why there are no vowels in the Torah, part 1

December 30, 2011 – 13:49

I wanted to do you a post about why there aren’t any vowels or musical notation-marks in a sefer Torah, but when I came to study the subject, I realised it’s a good deal more complicated than can fit into one post. It seemed to require a brief history of vowel-marks, which in turn required […]

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Brush-up post on erasing…

December 16, 2011 – 14:54

I’ve been neglecting you a bit, I’m afraid. This is because I’ve been posting regular posts for my current Torah client at their special blog, and I haven’t had energy to do two lots of posts or to set up proper cross-posting. Check out last week’s post A single mistake invalidates the entire sefer Torah […]

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A Torah Named George – from the Torah repair mines

August 1, 2011 – 10:21

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 […]

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from the Torah repair mines – scribal archaeology

July 24, 2011 – 15:27

You’re merrily checking through a sefer Torah, one in which the scribe tends to underestimate his lines, and has to stretch at the ends to compensate (lines 1, 2, 6, 7). And you see a chunk (lines 3, 4, 5) of squishied-up writing. Why? This usually happens when you accidentally leave words out. Calligraphers have […]

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from the Torah repair mines

July 4, 2011 – 15:15

When re-inking letters, do not forget and plonk your stupid elbow down on them.

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The days were the days of the ripening of the grapes.

June 21, 2011 – 17:16

You haven’t had time to forget the story of the spies yet. Moses sends twelve good men and true out of the wilderness to check out the Promised Land; they come back reporting that the land is full of scary giants; the people decide that they actually don’t want to invade right now thanks all […]

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What are you doing on Tuesday evenings this summer?

June 17, 2011 – 13:46

You could be taking my class at Yeshivat Hadar! Or one of the half-dozen other Tuesday night classes which will also be happening. Here’s what mine is going to look like: Apprentice with a Sofer Learn basic Torah repair and maintenance skills which will enable you to keep your community’s Torah scrolls in good working […]

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יששכר – joint post with MarGavriel

June 6, 2011 – 00:25

I can’t remember which of you asked me about the word יששכר last week, but MarGavriel just sent me a translation of part of S. S. Boyarski’s work Ammudei Shesh and it had a tangent about יששכר in it, so here goes. The question was “What’s the deal with there being two letter shins in […]

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Tanakh On Klaf

May 24, 2011 – 18:04

Although scrolls of the Pentateuch have been common among almost all groups of Jews throughout the millennia, scrolls of the rest of the Tanakh have been much more rare. One colorful individual in the story of Tanakh scrolls was a character in the Old Yishuv of Jerusalem, in the 19th century. He insisted on returning […]

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Masechet Soferim, chapter 2, 16-20

May 24, 2011 – 00:57

טז) לא יעשה חציו גויל וחציו קלפים, אבל עושה חציו גויל וחציו צבאים, אף על פי שאינו מן המובחר. He shouldn’t do half of it on gevil [=a thicker type of cow parchment, more like leather] and half on klaf [a thinner type of parchment made by splitting a cow skin laterally]. But he may […]

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