(no subject)

The source turned out to be not so utterly unhelpful - just not helpful - so all is not lost. However, for some reason, I decided to take the scenic route to my conclusion, and read masses of teshuvot which aren't directly relevant, but which might provide me with just one extra interesting source. So, ploughing through pages and pages of rabbinic Hebrew and acronyms.

While we're here - why is it that the more famous a rabbi you are, the more acronyms you use? Ovadyia Yosef, arguably the most influential posek of modern times, hardly uses anything BUT acronyms. There is actually a rabbinic Hebrew equivalent for IMHO, for example. What with acronyms, words abbreviated bec' pap'r w' in short sup', and terrible print quality, researching this is much harder work than it would be if I only had the language issues to contend with.

In any case, production of amazing essay will resume shortly.

crumbs

I decided to search my yummy database of Practically All The Texts You'll Ever Need (aka Bar-Ilan) for variations on the theme of "pasul sefer Torah," on the basis that this would catch more or less any reference that could possibly be of interest to me. Among the modern responsa alone it turned up 132 occurrences. Most of these are going to be LONG and more or less irrelevant, but I'm going to have to try and read most of them, because of course the one I don't read will be the one someone uses to rip me apart, and it's important to me that I don't get ripped apart.

Fortunately tomorrow's Wednesday, which means Tanach in the afternoon, which means I get to play on my laptop and read my stuff in relative peace. Yofi.