This is one of my favourite letter-halakhot, from the rules of how to make straight nun:

And from the rules of straight khaf, clarifying the point:

Many people have difficulty visualising (and remembering) this. I hope that the animation displayed here will help.

The very best sorts of people do mitzvot as soon as the opportunity presents itself, correct? And we read Hebrew from right to left, so surely we should put tagin on the right-hand head of letters such as tzaddi, which have more than one head? Like the image at left, in fact.

We don’t, though. We put them on the left-hand head, like the image at right. Why’s that?

Because if you put them on the right-hand head, they’d fall off. (Keset haSofer, 5:2, letter tet.)

And this is why we make the right-hand heads curvy and upward-tilted.

View from the library of the Jewish Theological Seminary; ground-staff building a sukkah, ink-bottle in foreground.

We like working in the library, my apprentice and I. She has a big scroll of Torah that she’s repairing, and I have one sheet of Torah that I’m writing. There’s a part of the library which has great light and huge tables, so we meet there and work together.

Sometimes people come by and ask questions. Occasionally we inspire an undergraduate; last week one asked “Do you have to go to grad school to do this?” and could not quite believe that with hard work and diligence, you can sidestep the grad school part of having an interesting career entirely.

Generally the apprentice, with her huge scroll, attracts more attention than I do. So she gets to do all the impromptu teaching, and I just get on with writing.

Shabbat 103b/Sifrei Vaethanan

וכתבתם – שתהא כתיבה תמה; שלא יכתוב אלפ”ין עיינ”ין, עיינ”ין אלפ”ין, בית”ין כפ”ין, כפ”ין בית”ין, גמ”ין צד”ין, צד”ין גמ”ין, דלת”ין ריש”ין, ריש”ין דלת”ין, היה”ין חית”ין, חית”ין היה”ין, וו”ין יוד”ין, יוד”ין וו”ין, זיינ”ין נונ”ין, נונ”ין זיינ”ין, טית”ין פיפ”ין, פיפ”ין טית”ין, כפופין פשוטין, פשוטים כפופין, מימ”ין סמכ”ין, סמכ”ין מימ”ין, סתומין פתוחין, פתוחין סתומין. פרשה פתוחה לא יעשנה סתומה, סתומה לא יעשנה פתוחה.

When the Torah says “ukhtavtam,” it means that it should be ketivah tamah – perfect/simple writing. So you shouldn’t make:
alephs into ayins or ayins into alephs.
Nor beits into khafs or khafs into beits.
Nor gimels into tzadis or tzadis into gimels.
Nor dalets into reishes or reishes into dalets.
Nor heys into hets or hets into heys.
Nor vavs into yuds or yuds into vavs.
Nor zayins into nuns or nuns into zayins.
Nor tets into pehs or pehs into tets.
You shouldn’t make bent ones straight or straight ones bent
Nor mems into samechs or samechs into mems.
You shouldn’t make opens closed or closeds open.

If you mix up alefs and ayins, this happens:

(אתון=donkey. עתון=newspaper.)

By the way, have you noticed the progress bar on the right-hand side there? I update it about once a week. See we’re at 10% complete?