Monday, April 19, 2010

My Progress #5: My First Mezuza


Today I finished writing my very first Mezuza, which means that I'm a step closer towards my goal of writing a Sefer Torah. This time the stakes were much higher - unlike in Megilat Esther and Shir Hashirim I had to write the Shem Hashem and I had to write everything "Kesidran", chronologically. And of course, going to the Mikva became part of my daily schedule, as I can only write the Shem after a proper immersion.

I will give this Mezuza to be checked by a very skilled Sofer here in my town and considering that he is a master in finding unexpected problems, I must say I'm afraid of what he will say. But as far as I can see all is ok. Actually, there's one "mistake" which I deliberately didn't correct because of a problem with the Klaf. Like in my Megillat Shir Hashirim, I made a small hole in klaf while trying to fix a letter, and for that reason I didn't manage to correct this mistake. Can you find it?

Like all my other Safrut items, this Mezuza was written in Ktav Beit Yosef. And like all Ashkenazi Jews, I followed the Tur's opinion of how the Parsha Setuma should be. Read more about this topic here.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

super legal, nao achei o furinho bjs pa

tefillin rabbi said...

Very impressive for your first mezuzah and even if it wasn;t your first. Who did you learn by?

YK said...

Thanks!
My teacher was Kenigsberg, who owns a klafim factory in Jerusalem. And yours?

Benyomin said...

Great work for a first mezuzah! A couple of thoughts, is there a reason you went beyond the left hand margin on each line? Also, I noticed in the third to the last line in the word b'neikhem, the nun is missing its tagim.

Anonymous said...

Interesting, youve written ksav beis yosef (non chassidic0 but left the spaces between the parsha super large like minhag chabad.

YK said...

I didn't know that was Minhag Chabad. From what I know, it's better to leave larger gaps rather than small. The minimum I think is nine Yudim, but there's no max.

YK

Anonymous said...

Generally there are three main minhagim for the gaps at the end of par shema and begin. of paragraph vehoya im:

Taz - the smallest. Usually less than nine yudin on each side.

Rambam - less tan nine yudin after shema but up to nine large letters at begin. of vehoya.

Shulchan aruch harav (Chabad)is to leave at least nine small letters on each side by mezuzah and at least nine large letters on each side by tefillin.

If you do chabad (as you did) its only kosher bedieved acc to the mishnah brurah who rules like the opinion of the taz.

Yet the followers of the M.B. usually want Beis Yosef. For Chabad B.Y. is out of the question. Hence your mezuzah, (nice as it is for a first mezuzah)is quite unique!

Hatzlacha in all your holy work.

YK said...

Anon,

I did some more research about this and I was told that the the threshold is not 9 yudim, but three times "asher". If so, my parshiot are still inside the limit (they're smaller than 3 times asher) and therefore lekatchila.

Have you heard this too?

YK