BS"D

PICTURE YOURSELF IN A BOAT ON A RIVER...


Friday, August 20th
The highlight of my day today was a chat on the phone with Dr. Eric Ray, internationally renowned sofer ST"M & all-round nice guy.
He'd written a kids' book I'm a big fan of called "Sofer: The Story of a Torah Scroll". Check it out at http://www.torahaura.com/Children_s_Books/Sofer_The_Story_of___/sofer_the_story_of___.html.
He is such a treasure - possibly the most knowlegable scibe on the planet, an expert in dating Sifrie Torah based on their materials & styles - so it was a real privilege to speak with him. He'd just come out of hospital, so we didn't speak for too long, but we both had wanted to speak with each other for some time. I wanted to speak with him because he's one of my heroes & he wanted to speak with me because he'd heard there was a soferet out there & wanted to reach out.
I'm really glad we did. R' Kevin Hale put us in touch (he's the Reconstructionist sofer I mentioned in an earlier writing). He'd been one of Dr. Ray's students. R' Kevin related to me what unbelievable knowledge Dr Ray had & how he shared it unselfishly. What a terrific teacher & mentor he was, & how very kind.
When I called, I got his wife, Lali. I told her that R' Kevin had passed their number along to me because Dr. Ray wanted to talk to me. "Oh, just a moment - Eric, it's that female scribe!" :) Dr. Ray was extremely pleasant to speak with. He asked me all kinds of questions about what I had learned with my sofer & we shared a little info. He also cautioned me not to buy any d'yo (ink) coming out of Brooklyn right now, because there were some unscrupulous sofrim adding very much soot to their recipes & not steeping the ink properly or long enough. All this was in an attempt to produce more faster & profit further. But this ink was far inferior to that which is made properly (& with the proper intention), so he wanted to make sure that I didn't buy any while I was there. I thanksd him very much for his advice & he asked me to please keep in touch. I was secretly hoping he'd invite me to his home so I could meet him & Lali, as R' Kevin had hinted he might. Oh well.

Can you imagine? Sofrim who want to get rich off selling an inferior product to be used in this most holy occupation.