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We had a fun field trip. We got to play at being international art thieves - ones who steal synagogue art and update it with the names of recent donors and then give it back, so possibly "thieves" isn't the best word ever - but fun anyway. That shul had a huge and terrible pun, thus: the Torahs are usually kept in a cupboard referred to as an "ark" (as in "ark of the tabernacle," right?). This ark was made to look like a giant ship sailing towards the congregation. Groan.
Then we went down into New Jersey to a huge shul which had huge Torahs which wanted assessing so the shul could see how much it would cost to repair them, and then the shul would decide what to do about them. They'd had water problems and humidity problems, and some of the Torahs were not very happy. Some of them were quite happy and only wanted a bit of cleaning. The saddest one had lots of crinkly bits which would have to be re-done entirely cos the letters had all fallen off. One of them was very pretty indeed. One of them had funny klaf, where it hadn't gone whitish like parchment usually does, but translucent. Not under the writing - at the edges, where it'd been cut close to fat deposits, apparently.
There was one which had about six different types of writing in it - had presumably been cobbled together from parts of other Torahs. Interesting, although not always the prettiest. And there was one where the sofer had very cheekily extended a letter peh. You can extend lamed and hey and various other letters, but peh?! It looked odd. Oh, and they gave us ice-cream.
Then we went down into New Jersey to a huge shul which had huge Torahs which wanted assessing so the shul could see how much it would cost to repair them, and then the shul would decide what to do about them. They'd had water problems and humidity problems, and some of the Torahs were not very happy. Some of them were quite happy and only wanted a bit of cleaning. The saddest one had lots of crinkly bits which would have to be re-done entirely cos the letters had all fallen off. One of them was very pretty indeed. One of them had funny klaf, where it hadn't gone whitish like parchment usually does, but translucent. Not under the writing - at the edges, where it'd been cut close to fat deposits, apparently.
There was one which had about six different types of writing in it - had presumably been cobbled together from parts of other Torahs. Interesting, although not always the prettiest. And there was one where the sofer had very cheekily extended a letter peh. You can extend lamed and hey and various other letters, but peh?! It looked odd. Oh, and they gave us ice-cream.