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May 30, 2003/Iyar 28 5763, Vol. 55, No. 40
Technical Torah
Scholars unroll scroll's mystery
LEISAH NAMM
Managing Editor
Cantor Mikhal Shiff-Matter and Rabbi Robert Klensin of Temple Beth Israel watch Rabbi Yitzchak Steiner, center, and Rabbi Yitzchak Goldstein of Jerusalem's Machon Ot check the kashrut of one of the synagogue's nine Torahs.
Photo by Leisah Namm
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For thousands of years, the Jewish people have revered the Torah. In synagogues around the world, Torahs are dressed in decorative adornment, given the place of honor in the synagogue and treated with the finest of care.
But do many people really give the actual Torah scroll much thought except when they make their way toward the aisle to kiss it as it is carried through the synagogue during a Shabbat or holiday service? What process is taken to write a Torah? What materials are used? Who wrote it?
Three rabbis from Jerusalem's Machon Ot, an authority on Torah scroll repair, restoration and preservation, visited Temple Beth Israel on May 14 to examine the temple's nine Torahs and educate the community about the intricate work that goes into a Torah.
First of all, who writes them?
Sofers (specially-trained scribes), most who live in Israel, must have three qualities, says Rabbi Zerach Greenfield, one of the visiting rabbis. They must know how to write all the Hebrew letters and know all the laws about how the letters should be written. Also, Jewish knowledge is necessary, so they can understand what they're writing. Third, they must have a connection to God when writing. Each time they start handwriting a Torah, a sofer must first say "For the sanctity of the Sefer Torah," Greenfield says. Most sofers visit the mikvah before writing God's name; some leave spaces in the text where God's name should go and fill them all in after one visit to the mikvah.
Sofers are not allowed to write the letters from memory - they must copy them from an existing source. "We have a 4,000-year-old tradition," Green-field says. "In order that that tradition doesn't change," all Torahs must be the same. If one letter of the Torah is written incorrectly, there's a danger that the error will be passed on to the next generation.
"If the Torah is 99.9 percent kosher, it's also 100 percent not kosher," Greenfield says.
Traditionally, if someone reads from the Torah during a service and notices a broken letter, the Torah should be put away and the reading continued from a different Torah. A non-kosher Torah can be used to dance with at Simchat Torah or for teaching purposes, but should not be used during a service, Greenfield says.
It typically takes a sofer about one year to write the 305,805 letters of the Torah; the scribes make about $10-$12 per hour, he says. Approximately 500 new Torahs are written each year. A good quality kosher Torah costs $10,000-$14,000; a new one is $23,000-$35,000.
The klaf (parchment) itself, made from the skin of a kosher animal such as a calf or deer, costs about $4,000, Greenfield notes. When the writing is finished, the sofer sews the individual pieces of parchment together using a thread called gidden, which is made from the leg sinews of a kosher animal. The text is written with a quill from a kosher bird and the ink is made from a blend of powdered gall nuts, copper sulfate crystals, gum arabic and water.
If even one broken letter is found, the Torah is no longer kosher and must therefore be fixed. The rabbis also look for torn sections, torn sewing stitches, cracks in the letters, connected letters and words written too close to each other.
From examining a Torah scroll, the rabbis can identify the age and the country of origin.
Identifying aspects include the type of parchment and ink and the style of writing. Each country developed its own method of preparation and writing style, Greenfield says. For example, Russian Torahs are known to be written with the finest ink. Since Poland was a poor country, Polish parchment often has holes in it because the animal skins were too thin, he says. The letters often are written in varied wide and narrow columns instead of uniform columns because the scribe wrote around the holes.
One of the Torahs Rabbi Yitzchak Steiner and Rabbi Yitzchak Goldstein examined was on display at the Sylvia Plotkin Judaica Museum. The Torah was originally from Czecho-slovakia, one of the rescued Torahs from the Holocaust that was turned over to the Westminster Synagogue in London. The approximately 1,500 Torahs found had been seized by Hitler for future use in a museum about the "extinct Jewish race." The numbers the Nazis used to trace the Torahs are still written on this Torah's roller.
The rabbis identified this Torah to be about 200 years old, and they noted the brown color was likely caused by fire.
During their recent visit, the rabbis also visited Chabad of Phoenix, Har Zion Congregation and Temple Kol Ami.
The Machon Ot rabbis travel around the world to evaluate, examine and restore Torahs. During the past two decades, they have examined and repaired more than 10,000 Torah scrolls in Jewish communities and synagogues throughout the world, according to its Web site.
Every examined scroll is entered into the International Torah Registry, a worldwide computer database assigning a unique Torah code to every Torah scroll analyzed. This technique is the only one used by the Israel National Police, Interpol and The New York Police Department for returning a recovered stolen Torah scroll.
After the rabbis evaluate the Torahs, they submit a detailed explanation of the exact condition of each Torah scroll and its appraised value, valid for insurance purposes.
On the following page is the process Machon uses to identify the Torahs.
Contact the writer at leisah_namm@jewishaz.com.
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