CLARIFICATION & APOLOGY

BS"D


In a previous post, I inadvertently wrote a sentence that was not clear about the Halakhah of women writing & fixing Sifrei Torah & as a result some people got the wrong impression. For that I apologise & will write more exactly about it now (& no, I'm not sure where the post is. My blog is long enough that I don't have time to go through it all looking for a single sentence I wrote I don't know when).

I said something to the effect that my synagogue asked a sofer to repair a couple of Sifrei rather than have me do it (actually, the owner of the Sifrei made this request). I had commented that not everybody holds by the same position about women being kasherot to write &/or those woman-written/repaired Sifrei being kosher for public kria. This lead someone to think that I was misrepresenting Orthodox Halakhah & they told me so. So please allow me to clarify what I meant to say more clearly:

When I said that not everyone held the same position on this issue, I was meaning *everyone*, as in Orthodox, Reconstructionist, Conservative, Reform, Athiest, Renewal, Humanist, whatever. My intention was NOT to assert that there are various *practices* based on the different opinions within Orthodoxy only. If I gave anyone else that impression, I apologise. Please, if you're ever not sure about what I'm stating, or disagree, feel free to comment.

My understanding on this issue so far is:
According to traditional sources (I won't call them "Orthodox", because that's revisionist) there are some important voices in Halakhah that state women are kasherot to write Sifrei Torah, & some that appear to understand those Sifrei may be kosher for public ritual use. However, no Orthodox congregation that I am aware of is at this point willing to in fact use a woman written/repaired Sefer in this way.

Although I do want to point out that Rebbetzin Dulcie of Worms used to re-sew & patch Sifrei for her community in Germany 900 or so years ago, & that wasn't a problem. Perhaps engaging with the otiyot is the unspoken issue..?

Hope I cleared that all up sufficiently. If not, just yell.

Chodesh tov!