The Brevard Jewish Community has a Torah.

Pictures of Our New Torah

Click on pictures to enlarge them.

The new Torah in the Temporary

Ark in Father Carl's Study

Ideal Specification for Purchase of Torah

1. "Certified" Kosher

2. Good contrast between letters and background

3. No white powder on reverse side

4. Parchment size: 18" to 24"

5. Weight 25 lbs or less

6. Certification of Scribe (Rabbi/Scribe)

7. Age and History should also be considered.

Torah Purchased From:

Rabbi Mordechai Danneman
Certified Sofer STaM
www.thesoferstam.com

770-454-8154 

A Tale of Two Rabbis and Five Torahs

As many of you may already know, Norman and I made a trip to Atlanta Sunday, 9 April 2006, to look at the five Torahs available from Rabbi Ariel Asa and Rabbi Mordechai Danneman.  We left our house around 7:00 a.m. and had an uneventful ride to Atlanta.  With only a few wrong turns and three phone calls for more information, we managed to make to the home of Rabbi Asa around 11:00 a.m..  

We were greeted on the drive way by the rabbi and his children after which we were ushered into his home to see the three scrolls he had set aside for us to view.  The first was in such poor condition and the parchment so dark that we gave it only a cursory glance before moving on the the second.  The second scroll was opened to a section that showed beautifully lettered columns on a bright white parchment that was in very good condition.  Rabbi Asa rolled it to the first ten columns of Genesis to show us the one of this Torah's three flaws.  The parchment was discolored but because the script was clear and very dark, the contrast was adequate to make even the discolored portion readable.  The scroll was about 18 inches high and the whole Torah, spindles and all, only weighed about 12 pounds.  This scroll had two other problems.  The script itself was smaller than most standard sized Torahs and to add insult to injury the spacing between the letters was minimal demanding exceptionally careful attention as one read.

Rabbi Asa then showed us his third scroll.  On this Torah, the parchment was uniformly mottled and stained in many places.  The edges of the scroll, both top and bottom, were cracked throughout and brittle.  The script had many places where letters were beginning to fade and there was a small hole in the middle of a word that Norman spotted while reading from it.  It had the advantage of larger and more widely spaced lettering but on the whole, both Norman and I felt the best of the three was the second with the smaller, closely spaced script.

As previously arranged, we took our leave of Rabbi Asa and his charmingly normal children promising to call after we had seen the second set of Torahs.  We headed a short distance across town for our appointment with Rabbi Danneman.  He met us in the parking lot of his schul.  He carried the two scrolls he had to show us into a room obviously used for Torah study and teaching.  He opened the first Torah and explained that he and Rabbi Asa were friends and often worked together.  This scroll had been sent by Rabbi Asa to Rabbi Danneman to be manually checked.  He showed us what he had found.  In many places the lettering had oxidized leaving some letters a reddish brown rather than the jet black required of a Kosher scroll.  In addition to the fading problem, there were a few sloppy repairs, but what convinced us that we were not interested in purchasing this scroll was a distinctly musty odor indicating that the parchment had begun to mildew in places.

That brought us the the fifth and final scroll.  As soon as Rabbi Danneman began to unroll it, both Norman and I knew we had found the Torah for our congregation.  The rabbi pointed out where he had made four or five small touch-ups of the script and discussed the general condition of the scroll with us.  He had had two other sofers, scribes, read the scroll from end to end looking for problems.  Finally, he electronically scanned it.  The scan showed no faded lettering and no problem areas of any kind.  The two sofers who manually checked it found no damage to the parchment and no mildew or any other contamination.  Unlike the first scroll he showed us, this one had no odor beyond the clean smell of properly cured parchment.  While naturally mottled a bit, the parchment, was light enough that the contrast between the script and the surface upon which it was written posed no problems to the reader.  It had no cracked or brittle edges, no holes or tears and was in exceptionally good condition.  The script itself was well spaced; significantly larger than the script on the best of the three from Rabbi Asa; and it was what it was supposed to be in color, jet black.  Rabbi Danneman had made new spindles for it and is came with a brand new girdle and mantle.  

While Norman made out the check to pay for the Torah, the rabbi began to talk.  What ensued was a 45 minute crash course on the scribal arts along with a brief history of this particular scroll.  It was fascinating.  Somewhere in Europe about fifty years ago, a man of some means who had survived the Holocaust commissioned this scroll for his personal use.  Eventually this man emigrated to Israel where he lived out his days.  After his death, his children decided that their father's personal Torah could be better utilized by a congregation than an individual.  Rabbi Danneman saw it, liked it and bought it and began work on making the few touch-ups to the script that were needed and making new spindles for it.  

Do You Know How a Sefer Torah  is made?

The Sefer Torah is written on sheets of parchment by a Sofer, special trained for this holy task.

The Sofer prepares parchment sheets:

Kosher Parchment called Klaf must be prepared specifically for that purpose (i.e.. the klaf for a Torah cannot be used for Tefillin, and vice versa). The parchment must derive from a kosher animal, usually a goat, bull/cow, or deer. The Klaf is meticulously prepared by the Sofer, who first soaks the skin in lime water for nine days to remove hairs, and then stretches the skin over a wooden frame to dry.  The Sofer scrapes the skin while it is stretched over the wooden frame to remove more hair and smoothes the surface of the skin in preparation for writing on it with the use of a sanding machine.  When the skin is dry, the Sofer cuts it into a rectangle.  The Sofer must prepare many such skins because a Sefer Torah usually contains 248 columns, and one rectangle of parchment yields space for three or four columns.  Thus a Sefer Torah may require approx. 80 or more skins in all.

Finally, When the parchment sheets are ready, the Sofer applies a straight edge to draw a writing pattern - usually forty two horizontal lines across the parchment and two vertical lines defining the boundaries for each column. He also leaves a blank space between the area designed for writing and the margin.  According to the tradition, it has to be five fingers wide.  Thus, a Sofer will have at least three to four columns on each piece of parchment, called amudim (amud means one column).  In general, there should be no less than three amudim on one yeriah (sheet or folio) and not more than eight.  There must be a margin of three inches on the top, four inches at the bottom, and two inches between columns.  Now the parchment is waiting for the writing process to start.

The Sofer prepares quills and ink:

The Sofer makes quills for writing a Sefer Torah.  The feathers must come from a kosher bird, and the goose or turkey are the birds of choice.  The Sofer carefully and patiently carves a point in the end of the feather and uses many quills in the course of writing one Sefer Torah.  A special quill is used only for G-d's four letter name.  The Sofer also prepares ink for writing the Sefer Torah by combining a blend of powdered gall nuts, copper sulfate crystals, gum arabic, and water, preparing only a small amount at a time, so that the ink will always be fresh.  Fresh ink is a deep black, and only this is acceptable for writing a Sefer Torah.

The Sofer 's writing begins:

Once the materials are prepared, the Sofer visits the mikvah in preparation for such holy work, and prays that the holy work about to be undertaken will be imbued with the sanctity in the Sofer 's heart.  While at work, the Sofer is a vehicle for Hashem's holy words and thus intense concentration and cognizance of the sanctity of the work are critically important.  It takes a professional Sofer almost a year to write on parchment more than a quarter of a million letters.  The Sofer is not allowed to write from memory.  The Sofer has to look into the text of a Chumash that has been thoroughly checked to be an accurate copy or a Tikkun for each next letter, concentrating himself on the holiness and significance of each of the letters of the Sefer Torah.  The Torah can only be written in a special square script called K'tav Ashuri.  Although Hebrew is read and written from right to left, the Sofer forms each individual letter starting from left to right, checking each word from the Tikkun, singing each word, each letter, out loud.  Seven of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet are given a special design.  Called tagin, they are flourishes, three small upward strokes resembling crowns.  There is a Talmudic tale that describes how Moshe once ascended to heaven to find G-d occupied with affixing tagin on the letters of the Torah.  For the story, click here.
The scroll may contain no errors whatsoever. While some mistakes may be corrected by scraping off the ink of a letter made in error with a knife or a pumice stone and rewriting it, if a mistake is made in writing any of the names of Hashem, no correction may be made because G-d's name may not be erased. The entire sheet of parchment must be buried or placed in a genizah, and the Sofer must begin that section of the Torah again. Once the sheets of parchment are completed, the scribe checks them each three times with the help of someone else who uses a Tikkun.

The Sofer sews the sheets together and attaches the spindles:

When the writing is complete, the Sofer sews the individual pieces of parchment together using a thread called giddin which is made from the leg sinews of a kosher animal, most commonly a cow, a sheep, or an ox. The Sofer makes one stitch every six lines of text, sewing the backs of the parchment sheets, so that the stitches are not visible from the front. Then the scroll is sewn onto wooden rollers called Atzei Chayim (trees of life) (plural of Etz Chayim). The Torah is then dressed and ready to be dedicated in a Jewish community in a special celebration called a 'Siyyum Torah.'

Torah Ornaments:

The Torah is dressed and decorated because it is holy and is considered the core of Hashem's communication with Bnei Yisroel (The Children of Israel, i.e. The Jewish People). The tops of the wooden rollers of the Sefer Torah are often decorated either with rimonim or adorned with silver or gold crowns which covers both rollers, symbolizing G-d's sovereignty.  It emphasizes the metaphor of the Keter (crown) of the Torah.  The Torah is sometimes adorned with a breastplate, while richly decorated mantles cover and protect it.

A few more basic facts about a Sefer Torah.

• A Sefer Torah must be written by a Sofer (a specially trained scribe).

• All materials used for the Sefer Torah must be Kosher.

• A Sofer must know over 4000 laws  before he starts writing the Sefer Torah!

• There are 304,805 letters in a Sefer Torah.

• If only one letter is missing the whole Torah is Pasul (not Kosher).

• One letter from 304,805 is - 0.000328%!!!

• If there is an extra letter it is also Pasul.

• Substituting one letter with another is also NO good.

• 99% Kosher = 100% Pasul (not Kosher).

• There are 248 ammudim (pages) in a Sefer Torah.

• Each page has 42 lines.

• Even the spacing between words & paragraphs must be exact.

About the letters in the Torah:

• No letter may touch another one.

• Even within the letter itself, it may touch itself only where it should.

• There are 22 letters and 5 final letters in the Torah.

• The most common letter is aYud with 31,530 occurrences.

• The least common letter is aTet with 1,802 occurrences.

• The most common final letter isFinal Mem (Sofit) with 10,623 occurrences.

• The least common final letter isFinal Feh (Sofit) with 834 occurrences.

The writing style:

• There is a special writing style with "crowns" (crows-foot-like marks coming up from the upper points) on many of the letters.  This style of writing is known as STA"M (an abbreviation for "Sifrei Torah, Tefillin and Mezuzot," which is where you will see that style of writing.  For more information about the STA"M alphabet, including illustrations and relevant rules, see Hebrew Alphabet used in writing STA"M.

The materials used for the Sefer Torah:

• The Torah must be hand written on Parchment [animal skin].

• The parchment - must be made from a Kosher animal.

• The ink - all ingredients used must be Kosher or synthetic.

• The ink must be black (not dark blue or any other color).

• The giddin (thread) used to sew the parchments together must be made from the veins of a (Kosher) animal, and is specially treated for this purpose.

• The quill [the pen] must be from a Kosher bird - usually a goose or turkey.

The Sofer, the Scribe:

• He must be Bar Mitzvah (13 years old) [some say even married].

• Must be fluent and tested in all the laws of Safrut - (laws of writing the Torah).

• Must be a certified Sofer.

• Must write with his right hand or left if he is a lefty.

• Must have the proper intention, when writing the Torah and especially when writing G-d's name.

Links to Torah Information

click on any of the links below

http://www.stam.net/what_is_stam.html

http://oraita.net/chabad.htm

http://oraita.net/sofer_stam.htm

http://www.geocities.com/snortar/schonfield.html