Hatam Soferet

What we have today is a lithograph, Das Innere einer Sinagoge in Rom, or Interior of a Synagogue in Rome; click the image at right to see a larger version. It’s by the Swiss artist Hieronymus Hess, and it’s one of a pair, the Rare Book Room doesn’t have the other half of the pair, but Sothebys had some notes about it. The first half of the pair “portrays a Catholic practice of requiring Jews to listen to conversionist sermons which persisted until well into the 19th century” and they’re all staring into the distance as a preacher harangues them. But in our print they’re on home turf and enjoying themselves.

Hess is famous for social caricature and satire. This piece is certainly that. Open question whether you also want to label it antisemitica, Hess not being Jewish (but he hung out with Nazarenes, so he probably had Ideas about Who Is Doing Religion Right, and it isn’t the Jews, so he’s probably disapproving at the least). Christians quite often get on our case for being insufficiently decorous in shul.

So, we have a synagogue interior, that of the Tempio Italiano in Rome. I thought it very odd indeed that the frieze around the top of the shul has the text of “An eye for an eye;” Vivian Mann says many of the interior details are accurate, but she doesn’t mention this specifically, and it seems more likely to be an anti-semitic comment. We don’t usually put bloodthirsty, vengeful verses on our holy spaces.

It appears to be Torah-reading time; there’s what looks like a scroll on the bima, one of those very tall scrolls, and another scroll up at the front by the aron with a crown on.

Bear in mind that particular details of such a picture as this are a heavy mix of artist’s impression and fantasy. There’s no guarantee that the Italian Jews read with three persons on the bima. That said, I’m guessing the guy with the top hat gazing off into the distance is the person honoured with the aliyah, because he isn’t paying attention to the reading. The guy whose tallit covers his eyes is the one doing the reading, because it’s practically a rule that the reader has to be so muffled as to be inaudible. And the one with the tricorn hat is the gabbai, who’s actually the one paying attention.

I think this chap is taking snuff.

I do not know why this chap is climbing on the column, tallit flying, but possibly he wants to leap down and deliver retribution on that guy with the flowing white headgear. It doesn’t seem that his problem is being unable to see the activity on the bima.

These guys I am all too familiar with. They’re saying “Can’t they shut up with the damn leyning? We’re trying to learn Torah here!”

It’s unclear whether this child is responding to the din in the synagogue, or whether he’s an allegorical Jew, equally uninterested in his own religion as the one the kind Christians are trying to give him. Obviously all the Jews here are pretty uninterested in their own religion, but they don’t actually have their fingers in their actual ears. The other two kids in the foreground are a) sleeping b) climbing over the pew back to get away.

Here we have a very pious chap; you can tell he’s pious because he has mighty moustachios, whereas most of the people in the shul have no beards. And right behind him, juxtaposed, is a big fat guy (Jews are greedy) making a hand-signal which I read as “money” but I might be wrong. Perhaps the book he’s holding is an account book; perhaps it’s the Bible and it’s showing how Jews just twist the Holy Law to get money out of it.

The Tablets of the Law above the ark are divided the Christian way, four and six, not the Jewish way of five and five, the way they actually were in that shul (Evelyn Cohen, Vivian Mann, Gardens and Ghettos, p. 255). This points to the picture being a Christian allegory, and our guy here would be an allusion to the moneychangers in the Temple.

Which I could go on about at some length, but this post is long enough already. Suffice it to say that with the amount of administration the Temple was doing, there’s nothing wrong with having moneychangers there, and it’s only a big deal if you correlate piety with poverty. Which some Jews do and some Christians do, and some Jews don’t and some Christians certainly don’t (see various church schisms throughout the history of the church). But it’s used to show that Jews are venial and given to profaning the holy with their everlasting grubbing for money, which is not nice.

I shall leave you with the impressions of another Christian, Samuel Pepys the diarist, upon visiting the synagogue, not witting that it was Simchat Torah:

But, Lord! to see the disorder, laughing, sporting, and no attention, but confusion in all their service, more like brutes than people knowing the true God, would make a man forswear ever seeing them more and indeed I never did see so much, or could have imagined there had been any religion in the whole world so absurdly performed as this.

Next time, we shall see some examples of Proper Decorum, also featuring a camel.

Mirrored from hasoferet.com.

This week’s parasha describes the worship-tent that God commands the Israelites to construct in the wilderness.

Around the tent, they are to construct a courtyard, of panels held between columns.

Perhaps you’ve seen a Torah scroll being unrolled around a sanctuary at Simchat Torah. You’ve seen how it’s long enough to go around the whole room, the panels of Torah surrounding the congregation like the panels surrounding the worship-tent.

It’s here in our parasha that we find the phrase ווי העמדים. Vavei ha’amudim, the hooks of the columns.

We haven’t made a worship-tent for millennia, but this particular little phrase lives on today in our Torah scrolls in an unexpected way. Scrolls have columns–of writing. And they have hooks–letter vav.

Most new scrolls today, CBH’s being no exception, are written such that almost every column starts with the letter vav.

It wasn’t always so. As late as the 1830s we find scribes’ rulebooks faithfully repeating that it is more or less forbidden to arrange the columns thus. In order to contrive a vav at the top of the column, scribes would perform tremendous feats of stretching and squishing, at the cost of uniform script and column width. Since a Torah is supposed to be a beautiful scroll and not a cutesy word game, scribes were vigorously discouraged from doing it.

By now, it has become an entrenched custom, such that I occasionally get panicked phonecalls from people who have noticed that their scrolls don’t have every column starting with vav, and I have to reassure them that it is perfectly all right.

How did it start? There seems to have been a rather early (gaonic?) custom of arranging for six particular words to appear at the tops of columns, for added significance. As it happened, these six words began with the letters ביה שמו. Over time, some scribes started to arrange their scrolls so that every column began with one of those six letters (53% of the words in Torah begin with one of those letters, so it’s not so difficult to arrange). And at some point, the idea of doing this just with vav (17% of the Torah’s words begin with vav) seeded and took root, becoming widespread sometime in the past 300 years.*

When did it start? Not clear. The Maharam of Rothenberg (thirteenth-century Ashkenaz), fulminating against it, said that there was no evidence the gaonim ever thought of doing it.** Rather, he said, the idea originated with one Leontin of Milhausen, who was showing off his skills.

Not everyone was against the custom. Various kabbalistic authors wove marvellous romances around the letter vav and its numerical representation, six, and the mystical and messianic relationships therein. The Hida has an interesting comment:*** he asks howcome vavei haamudim has become a widespread custom even though respected authorities say it is forbidden? Paraphrasing him a little, the answer is that Jewish communities are blessed with insight from God, so if communities are drawn to a thing, that thing must have some deep significance, and its existence is somehow divinely sanctioned.

The word vav literally means a hook, and the letter vav is also how we say “and” in Hebrew. Hooks hold physical constructs together, and vavs hold linguistic constructs together. What do the vavei haamudim hold together?

Some say the sheets of Torah–yeriot; curtains, veils—are held up by the hooks between heaven and earth. The columns of Torah form the metaphorical worship-tent in which Israel dwell, watched over by God above.

We might also suggest that the vavs of the columns are a reminder that times change. From being a minority position disapproved of by generations of Torah greats, vavei haamudim Torahs have become the default, with layers of meaning woven into them. Every generational vav, every individual “and”, contributes to incremental change; the old still hooked into the new, all held together, but the despised becoming beloved.****

* Yonatan Koletch (p392 footnote 200) quotes R. D. Yitzchaki: the concept of vavei haamudim scrolls “was introduced only during the past several hundred years by R. Ezra of Pisa”, but this seems to be an oversimplification.
** Quoted in the Hagahot Maimoniot, hilkhot sefer Torah, 7:7, but remember this is polemic and we don’t know how much evidence he was looking at.
*** Birkei Yosef, YD 273.
**** Add your own hobby-horse here. Social justice, feminism, disabled rights, race equality…

Mirrored from hasoferet.com.

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 the same; and God is wroth.

The end of the first aliyah:

Here’s something interesting. Various nineteenth-century chasidic commentators, such as Hekhal Ha-berakha (Rabbi Isaac Judah Jehiel Safrun, 1865) say that this is a Bad Place to end the aliyah, because it refers to harsh judgement, and you aren’t supposed to end aliyot on negative notes.

What is negative about grapes?! The season is that of blooming and flourishing, when the harvest is full of fine promise and the land full of beauty. Why is this bad?

Enter Seder ‘Olam Rabba, an early rabbinic text attributed to the Tanna Eli‘ezer ben Yosé Ha-gelili, which calculates biblical chronologies. The Israelites spent a year less ten days at Sinai (Numbers 10:11), thirty days at Qivroth-Ha‑ta’ava (11:19-20), and seven days at Ḥatzerot (12:15). And then, the spies left the camp on the last day of Sivan — late June or early July, the days of the first ripening of the grapes. They returned forty days later, on the Ninth of Av. And on that day God declared that none of that generation would enter the land.

In later sources, the months of Tammuz and Av, especially between the 17th of Tammuz and the 9th of Av, become understood as forboding, dangerous, or even demonic. A time of gathering wrath and impending curse. The Zohar even ties the verse to the Tree from which the Sin of Adam was committed, which some rabbinic sources identify as a grape-vine (the source of wine, which leads to sin). The author of the Zohar sees these weeks as the time when the universe re-lives the Sin of Adam.

In the 17th century, R’ Samson of Ostropolia even reads the word ‘anavim, grapes, as a reference to Samma’el, the Devil himself: through a caesar cipher, the word ענבם converts to סמאל, when each letter of the word is replaced by the preceding letter in the alphabet. Surely the chasidic sources who refuse to end the aliyah on this word are worried about something extremely frightening.

But we who end the first aliyah on these words are surely seeing the grapes as a positive thing. We’re more like the view of the Keli Yaqar (Ephraim of Luntshitz, 1550-1619) which views the ripe grapes in our verse as symbolizing the state of the Israelites at this point in their narrative; their time had come to enter the land, for they had already ripened, like grapes; their perfection had become complete from the Torah which they had learned at Sinai. And so it is that the sefer Torah is wearing a leafy crown with grapes; we put it on for Shavuot, and we will take it off only before the Ninth of Av.

This view is based on Psalm 80:9-16, which has an extended metaphor of Israel as a grape-vine:

Mirrored from hasoferet.com.

So how was your Shavuot? I spent it in Washington Heights, davening at Breuer’s.

Breuer’s looks like this on Shavuot:

Green velvet draperies, all hung about with boughs and flowers, with trees in tubs, and a chuppah-thing over the amud made from green branches. When it is a hundred degrees out and you walk into the cool air-conditioning and you breathe the pine scent and see all the greenery and the flowers, it’s a most beautiful feeling.

Breuer’s also does poetry, and this year I was struck by one of the piyutim for the first day of Shavuot. The poet has been talking for several pages about the various travails of the Israelites; the tough times the patriarchs went through, and he mentions the smiting of the rock, which made me think of the Israelites being hungry and thirsty in the desert, and he talks about the scary thunder and lightning and mountains being torn up by the roots and voices of trumpets waxing loud and louder. It is somewhat overwhelming.

And then he says:

It’s referencing a line from Proverbs (25:13) –

The Israelites have been having rather a tumultous time of it, hitherto. Like navigating crowds of people at an outdoor market with a zillion errands to run in boiling hot humid weather. Then Moses gets the Torah and it’s like the cold of snow in the time of harvest – like walking from hundred-degree heat into a spacious, pine-scented, air-conditioned room and not having any errands to run any more.

I’m put in mind of a friend I once had, who was formerly an egal-type Jew, but then became very chareidi, very Traditional Women’s Roles. Why? we asked her. Why have you done this to yourself? And she replied, with a contented serenity, “Everything is so simple now.”

I think it was like that for the Israelites, a bit. Now they had the Torah, they had rules and goals and guidelines. They didn’t have to do anything at all except what they were told. Everything had become simple now. And when you walk into Breuer’s, and you feel the delicious coolness of snow but see the lush green of the harvest, you’re reminded – via the poem – of Torah, and everything being clear and refreshing and simple.

Of course it’s not that easy – it never is – but the poet is giving a vision, and one that it doesn’t hurt to be inspired by now and again.

Mirrored from hasoferet.com.

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 to the original forms of Scripture — parchment scrolls of all the books — as preparation for the messianic era, when the biblical prophets would be resurrected, and would want to find everything as they expected, from their own day.

Here’s a Wikipedia article about him: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shemuel_Shelomo_Boyarski.

Mirrored from hasoferet.com.

Mirrored from hasoferet.com.

Here’s a video featuring a very tiny totally kosher Torah scroll.

The video’s more concerned with the accoutrements, a little aron kodesh and the usual silver ornaments for a Torah scroll, than with the scroll itself. They’re made by Bezalel School-trained artist Shuki Freiman, and they are breathtakingly beautiful, utterly and completely. Seeing them is a treat. I’m just a bit sad that they don’t talk about the scroll; they just say that it’s less then five inches tall and written by a sofer in Bnei Brak. No close-ups.

Shabbat shalom! Hope you bought your sushi this week. I bought mine. California rolls, yay.

Mirrored from hasoferet.com.

Here’s a quote from Eric Ray’s book Sofer: The Story of a Torah Scroll:

…no “base metals” may be used in making or repairing these texts. Base metals are the metals used in everyday tools. That means that no iron, no steel, no brass, no copper, and no bronze can be used. Base metals are the kinds used to make weapons. Nothing that is used for killing can be used in making a Sefer Torah, a Mezuzah, or a pair of Tefillin.

Strictly speaking, this is something of an overstatement, but let’s explore the sentiment. Our aversion to metal implements starts in the Torah, in Exodus 20:22:

If you build an altar of stones to me, you shall not use dressed stone; if you lift your sword to it you pollute it.

And in 1 Kings 6:7:

In building the House, stones ready-dressed were brought, so that neither hammer nor axe nor any iron tool was heard in the House during its construction.

Rashi, the most widely-accepted biblical commentator, explains:

The altar was made to lengthen man’s days, and iron was made to shorten man’s days; it isn’t appropriate to lift something which shortens against something which lengthens. Also, the altar brings peace between Israel and their heavenly father, so one should not use upon it anything which cuts and destroys.

That’s some pretty powerful anti-iron associations.

Now, from ChinaDaily.com, an element of Chinese culture:

Chinese people, under the cultivation of Confucianism, consider the knife and fork bearing sort of violence, like cold weapons. However, chopsticks reflect gentleness and benevolence, the main moral teaching of Confucianism. Therefore, instruments used for killing must be banned from the dining table, and that is why Chinese food is always chopped into bite size before it reaches the table.

This fascinates me because it suggests that it’s not just Jews who are made uneasy by iron tools. I have no idea how much cross-cultural exchange there may have been, but it’s interesting that such a concept should take hold in such different places.

The haftarah to parashat Behukotai contains a line from Jeremiah 17:

Judah’s guilt is written with an iron pen…

Judah here means the Jews; Jeremiah is talking about how the Jews have messed up again. It seems likely that Jeremiah didn’t choose an iron pen just because of its material properties. Iron has nasty overtones. A set of sinister connotations, if you will.

Looking forward, to today’s sofer. It’s not actually per se forbidden to use base metals, according to various authoritative halakhic sources, but many soferim hold that it’s utterly inappropriate, for their associations with violence and the incompatibility of this with the ideals of Torah; Torah, like the altar, is supposed to lengthen man’s days and promote peace between Israel and God. Hence the widespread use of alternative tools – precious-metal substitutes such as gold and silver; non-metal tools such as glass; tools with positive symbolism such as surgical scalpels.

In particular, the iron pen, associated by Jeremiah with the numerous times the Jews have failed to play straight by God. The iron pen carries not only associations of violence but also of disregarding the Torah. It’s not necessarily the best tool for the process of creating that selfsame Torah. We are encouraged to use quills, so that we can create Torah without these overtones.

Or we could use chopsticks.

The astute will note that this is a repost with edits. It’s still interesting :P

Mirrored from hasoferet.com.

See how the scribe here has adjusted his lines to fit around the hole in his klaf?

Rabbi Dan describes this perfectly: “a loving reminder that we live in a very, very wealthy time when we can have perfect klafim in our synagogues, and admiring the sofer who adapted to the needs of the moment.”

Mirrored from hasoferet.com.

In my email:

Hi Jen! I hope it’s okay if I ask you a quick question — the school I’m working at just paid a bunch to have our Torah repaired — lots of letter were flaking off. The sofer said this was due to humidity and…mentioned something about silicate powder, but we don’t know how much to get. Do you know anything about this subject? Thank you so much and chag sameach!

Background: when parchment gets humid, it expands, slightly and unevenly. I’ve posted before about how parchment sometimes goes cockly on warm days; see old post How a soferet knows it’s spring, for instance.The dampness causes small amounts of expanding and contracting.

The ink doesn’t expand or contract at the same rate as the parchment, and that’s where we run into difficulties. You’re probably all familiar with the effects; you’ve seen it happen on a t-shirt after it’s been through the laundry a few times.

click images to see bigger

Same thing happens to Torah letters, if they’re not well-guarded against humidity. Rapid changes are especially harmful.

REALLY bad humidity has even worse effects – worst of all when you have actual condensation, which causes real water damage, very hard to repair – but even when it isn’t that extreme, it can still be pretty bad, as in this next picture. There, the back of the parchment semi-melted and glued itself to the letters; when the scroll was unrolled, the letters stayed stuck to the back of the parchment, except in the places where the back of the parchment stayed stuck to the letters.

So what’re you supposed to do? How do you guard against humidity?

Aron design is part of it. If your aron kodesh is built into an exterior wall, and not damp-proofed, you’re setting yourself up for trouble. If you’re storing your sifrei torah in the boiler room during the week, likewise. If the aron lives right next to the heating unit, likewise. If you’re in Florida in the summer, likewise. Storing your sifrei torah away from the more obvious sources of moisture is a good idea, where possible.

If you’ve got no clue whether your aron is humid or not, there are humidity-testing devices out there. Hardcore cigar people have hygrometers in their cigar arons; you might borrow one from someone’s uncle. You can also pick one up on eBay, and they’re quite fun to have around so that you can grumble in the summer (”it’s 80% humidity today would you believe”). Also, every Jewish community has someone whose hair goes frizzy on humid days; put them in the aron and see if they come out complaining about their hair…no, I’m just joking. More info on humidity and testing here.

Museums face similar issues – even if they’re not in the boiler room or in Florida, museums store valuable documents in climate-controlled rooms, to prevent the same kind of damage we’re talking about here. Air-conditioning serves pretty well for climate control; one can also use a regular powered dehumidifier. Of course, using masses of electricity has its disadvantages.

The non-electric option is silica gel, that stuff that comes in packets in shoeboxes. It sits in the aron and absorbs atmospheric moisture; very clever, very handy. One can buy it in packages to suit particular volumes; it comes with a little indicator-thing so you can see how it’s doing, and when it’s absorbed as much moisture as it can hold, you dry it out in the oven and put it back. Here’s a nice FAQ about silica gel and the practicalities of how much to buy.

Mirrored from hasoferet.com.