Netivat Sofrut: diary of a Soferet

Adventures of a female sofer learning to heal the world by doing Holy Work...writing a Sefer Torah

נחזיר את השכינה למקומה בצייון ובתבל כלה

"Let us restore the Divine In-Dwelling to Her Place in Zion & infuse Her spirit throughout the whole inhabited world."

So wherever we are, let us bring the Peace of G@d's Presence.

: Name: Soferet; Location: Vancouver/London, British Columbia/UK, Canada

SCRIBAL EVANGELIST As the only living certified Soferet (סופרת - female Jewish ritual scribe) & the first woman to practice sofrut (creation of sacred Hebrew texts) in over 200 years, I feel an obligation to blog about my experiences of The Work. I am also currently researching the foundation of a lost tradtion of women practicing this holy craft. For more on the services I provide, please see Soferet.com; Sofrut Nation. I am now available to engage with students, male or female, wishing to enter into the preliminary stage of learning sofrut. You are welcome to join me on this path. "Tzedeq, tzedeq tir'dof - Justice, justice you shall pursue." Devarim/Deuteronomy 16:20.

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Saturday, July 02, 2005

MALAKHIM

בס"ד

At each Shabbes dinner, we pick cards to help us focus on the week ahead, where we are right now in our lives, & the direction we are taking. My wonderful friends, R' David & Michal Mivasair, pick an angel card after they light. Our Rabbi & Rebbetzin, Schachar & Meira, pass 2 sets of cards around the Shabbes table in between qidush & motzi, one Hebrew angel card & another set, with gorgeous images of angels depicted throughout the history of Western art.

Joel & I have come to our own "angel card minhag":
We & our guests each pick an angel card & a pasuq card. The angel cards are just the regular angel cards that everyone seems to have a set of, the ones that come in the small pink cardboard box that have one word calligraphed on the back with a naive drawing of an angel depicting the word.
The pasuq cards were invented by R' Schachar. They have, in Ashkenazi Torah script, a sentence from somewhere in TaNaKH on one side & then the same on the other, but with the vowels & an English translation & transliteration.

Last week, I got Tehilim/Psalms 107:13: "Vayizaku el YHVH batsar lahem mim'tsukoteyhem yoshi-em", or "They cried out to G@d in their distress; from their anguish G@d delivered them" plus the word "Love".

This Shabbat I drew Tehilim/Psalms 124:7: "Nafshenu k'tsipor niml'ta mipakh yokshim hapakh nishbar va-anakhnu nimlatnu", or "Our soul escaped as a bird out of the fowler's snare; the snare is broken & we escaped" plus the word "Delight".

I think someone is watching over me, Barukh HaShem.