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.

View my complete profile

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

DON'T TAPE YOUR TORAH!

בס"ד

11th Av

I read the paper this morning over breakfast - Boston Globe - all about how the disengagement is going. It's a tense & angsty time, but so far no deaths - nobody has even gone berserk, thank G@d. May it all go smoothly with no loss of life.
Missed my commuter train by 1 minute, so had to wait an hour in the station, where I wrote this. There's all kinds of free WiFi here, but I can't seem to get on :(

How different life is in Boston than in Gaza.

I discovered a Sefer Torah today with 3 different kinds of tape holding it together: packing, masking & scotch. What a nightmare. It's bad enough that they all have treyf (unkosher) glue adhering them to the parchment, but scotch tape leaves very bad stains. & packing tape is often impossible to remove, so these problems aren't as simple as just pulling the tape off or even sanding off the residue. It can mean re-writing entire yeri'ot (sheets of parchment).
People have no idea the kind of problems they're creating for themselves by putting tape on their Torahs. PLEASE, those of you out there who have access to Sifrei, if you suspect any problem at all, just call a sofer!