MORE HILKHOT SOFRUT

בס"ד


17 Elul

This is where you can order gold=plated scissors from, for all your sofrut needs!

Personally, I only use blades, as that's how my sofer taught me. Being mentored in sofrut is rather like going to live in a dojo so you can learn to pay very close attention & be very obedient. Just call me "Glasshoppah" ;+>

Now, we aren't allowed to use steel - or any base metal - on our Sifrei/sacred writings, so the general thing Ashkenazim do is plate their blades. Now scissors will not really do you a good turn for many of the tasks you'll need to use a cutting/scraping tool for, but if you can gold or silver plate exacto blades &/or razor blades, then you're good to go. That's what I do. Just don't ask me where I get the cyanide or the acid.

The following are my Lishqat HaSofer notes on Bet of chapter 28 in Qeset HaSofer, which my student & I went over tonight over the phone:
The Brakhei Yoseyf they brought in that they had printed Megilahs on qaf/parchment & the Gedolim/Great Rabbinic Scholars said these were pasul/invalid Megilot because this act of printing counts as choq tachut (not carving or engraving). & they further taught that you should geniza them (store them away permanently) in order that you shouldn't bring people through these Megilahs to sin inadvertently/give them a stumbling block by leading them to believe they are kosher. & the Acharomin/later Rabbinic commentators of B"M argued about this, whether that printing is an act of choq tachut or not that in the citation: rule 4 section 100 yud-bet in this text that in p 82 of Tractate Gittin in Talmud Yerushalmi says "...he shall write..." (Devarim/Deuteronomy reference to the the get/bill of divorce) saying that you must form letters by writing & not by dropping them. Just like matif (dropping) is not writing & letters must be formed by writing, printing is not writing. Also with regard to the Megilah, they bring the way of writting citing Mordechai writing & Esther writing in perek/chapter 9 of the Megilah & from this we learn the laws of Megilah from p 19 of Mishneh Gemara we explain: " ...& I wrote upon the Sefer with ink..." (Yermiyahu/Jeremiah) so here we have a different place from where we derive the rule of writing.

Sa'if Gimel on Qeset HaSofer: you need to lay down/place in the beginning (of the Megilah) a blank measure of qlaf (parchment) in order to be able to surround the whole Megilah when it's rolled up. & it is nehagin - done - so as not to make for it a an entire column / amud klal / not at the beginning & not at the end.
Dalet: you make all it's chapters/sections closed & if you make any of them open, it's pasul. but some accept it as kosher.

Slowly but surely, we are learning our way through the laws of sofrut together, my student & I :)