Category Archives: Maintenance and repair

Maintenance and repair

Hurricane Sandy

We had Weather here this week. You might have heard something about it in the news. My bit of Manhattan is fine, so am I, and so is your Torah. Despite our apartment building swaying in the wind, which is unnerving because we aren’t Californians and therefore not used to buildings wobbling about.

These scrolls were not so lucky.

These scrolls were in a mandatory evacuation zone in a low-lying part of Brooklyn. The owners decided not to evacuate, or even to move their scrolls up to the second floor despite warnings of once-in-a-lifetime flooding, and this is what happened. The scrolls are ruined and probably cannot be repaired.

(If your scrolls get wet, do not lay them out like this. It will not help. Layer them flat back and forth in zigzags interleaved with kitchen paper and stack heavy weights on top to keep the sheets flat. Cut the seams if necessary.)

Star Apprentice puts it best: “We had a fire drill last week, and I noticed that it’s no-one’s job to evacuate the Torahs. It would be bad if we had a fire and the Torahs got burned or wet. The fire drill plan should include evacuating the Torahs. I’m going to do something about that.”

This is a post first for CBH, my current client, but I’m cross-posting because plenty of other Jews read this. If you find the above image upsetting, but your fire drill, hurricane plan, or other natural disaster preparation routine doesn’t feature your Torah scrolls, you should be asking yourselves why.

Maintenance and repair

Noach and water damage

In this week’s parasha, water covers the face of the earth, so I’m going to share some pictures of various kinds of damage water can do to Torah scrolls.

Water damage happens from leaky roofs, but it also happens from sweat and spit, and from being stored in damp or humid locations. Wrapping a scroll tightly in plastic is a bad idea, because whatever moisture is trapped inside the plastic (and there will be some) will not be able to dry off.

If you’re very lucky, your water damage will only make the letters a little bit fuzzy and hard to read.
This is damage from sweat droplets. Fortunately, the rabbi had a tissue handy, and mopped up most of the sweat right away, before it had time to soak into the parchment. Multiple letters still needed repairing; when ink spreads such that letters touch each other, they’re not kosher any more and have to be repaired.
Water damage often causes ugly discolouration, and sometimes there is not much we can do about that. Also, sometimes the words are impossible to repair, because the water has made ink spread all through the parchment.
Here, water damage has caused the parchment to wrinkle. Removing wrinkles can sometimes be attempted, but it isn’t cheap. Wrinkles are bad for the parchment; they make it much more likely to tear. They also make life hard for the reader.
This sefer was stored for a long time in a damp location. The coating on the back of the scroll stuck to the letters, and when the scroll was opened, the letters peeled off. This scroll will have to be mostly rewritten.
To avoid water damage, consider keeping your sefarim in an environment with a dehumidifier. If your readers are prone to sweating, buy them headbands. Keep tissues on the bima in case of accidents. Don’t keep sefarim in closets built into external walls; such closets are generally damp. Generally remember that Torah scrolls are quite delicate when it comes to water, and act accordingly.
Maintenance and repair

Not much Torah writing this week

But lots of Torah repair.

It’s Elul, the season of repentance. It’s perhaps no coincidence that at this time of year, many communities want to get their Torah scrolls in good working order.

This involves checking through each and every letter of the scroll, making sure that it’s kosher, and if we can, making it beautiful as well. Elul, for comparison, involves checking through your relationships, repairing broken ones and strengthening existing ones.

To this end, this week I and my apprentices:

* worked on CBH’s Goldman scroll
* packaged up CBH’s Rosh Chodesh scroll for shipping home
* spent two days at a synagogue in Queens, fixing a scroll on-site
* worked on a scroll from Florida
* almost finished a scroll from Indiana
* completed and returned a local scroll
* put new atzei chayim on another local scroll.

I also moved house on Tuesday. I’m still in Manhattan, but further south now, on the Upper West Side.

Maintenance and repair

Shabbat Rosh Chodesh

It’s Shabbat Rosh Chodesh, so there’s an extra Torah reading this week.

I bet most of you reading this have two Torah scrolls in your shul. There’s the one you read from every week, and there’s the Rosh Chodesh Torah. It gets used on Rosh Chodesh and festivals for the seasonal readings, and never gets used for anything else. It’s probably the heavy one, or the old one people don’t really like using.

Talmud study:

המפקיד ס”ת אצל חבירו גוללו כל שנים עשר חדש פותחו וקורא בו אם בשבילו פתחו אסור סומכוס אומר בחדש שלשים יום בישן שנים עשר חדש ר”א בן יעקב אומר אחד זה ואחד זה שנים עשר חדש

If one deposited a sefer Torah with his fellow, he rolls it every twelve months, opens it and reads from it. If he opened it for his own needs, he may not read in it. Sumchus says one rolls a new Sefer Torah every thirty days and an old one every twelve months; R’ Eliezer ben Yaakov says whether new or old, they must be rolled every twelve months.

Bava Metzia 29b; the Talmud is talking about how you keep objects in good order if you’ve been entrusted with their care. To keep a sefer Torah in good order, you must roll it from end to end at least once a year and possibly once a month, and reading causes wear and tear.

People who repair Torah scrolls can always identify a Rosh Chodesh Torah. The Rosh Chodesh section is in unbelievably bad condition, like this:

Sorry for the fuzzy image–if you can see it, the letters are flaking off and the section is in no way kosher.

It is possible to repair damage like this, but it is time-consuming, expensive, and not especially long-lived.

You should be rotating your scrolls. If the big one is the Rosh Chodesh Torah this year, make it the main reading Torah next year (and I don’t care if no-one can lift it; do you want a pasul Torah on your hands? No you don’t). If you’ve got spare ones, get the bar mitzvahs or the ritual committee to roll one of them each month and bring them into the rotation next year.

If you’ve just commissioned a shiny new scroll (hello, CBH!), make it the reading scroll this year and the Rosh Chodesh scroll next year and roll it end-to-end every month to keep it healthy. Otherwise in fifty years it will look like the one in the picture, and you do not want that to happen.