The Yud is too long and it resembles a Vav, causing a paradox: if it's a Vav, this is a clean-cut Psul in the Sefer Torah and it must be fixed. However, if it's a Yud, it's forbidden to touch it since the word is already Holy (Elokim is one of Gd's names) and warrants no fix. In other words, both options are quite dramatic - a potential psul vs. the issur of fixing a proper Shem Hashem.M. Pinchas, based in the Or Hamelech, invoked the Havchanat Tinok solution to figure out which way to go. It has been some 4 months since I read this but it stayed in my mind since then, as this is a quite puzzling and delicate situation.
Last week I saw in the Ot Yatziv from Zanz (a great new sefer on Stam) a discussion about this and he concludes that in the case of Shem Hashem we should consider this letter to be a Yud, even though it's too long, because according to many opinions even a long Yud is still a Yud if it has a "Kefifa", curve, and I think the Yud of Elokim seen above has a slight kefifa.
According to this view, the Elokim should be considered kasher and therefore holy, and shouldn't be fixed. See the text below:
The author goes on to explain that many Sofrim write a long Yud purportedly, because of Kabalistic motives, and that there's no reason to render them Pasul.
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4 comments:
Wouldn't it be possible to resolve the paradox by cutting it out, patching the hole, and rewriting the Shem? (This is if we assume that it was wrong to write it this way - in other words, leaving aside what you wrote in your last sentence.)
Anon,
That's always a possibility but nowadays we rarely use this solution since it doesn't looks nice.
Just by the way, the solution you mentioned wouldn't work for Tefillin and Mezuzot, which need kesidran.
YK
Excuse my ignorance, but wouldn't the simple solution here be to add ink (leshem kedushas hashem of course) to the underside of the head of the yud, thereby making it more into the shape of a yud? So what if it is therefore a little bit bigger than the other yudin. The foot could then be even smaller than the head, it would be perfectly kosher.
Anon,
That's clever thinking but it still stumbles upon the paradox - if you do that trick, you're considering that the letter was indeed a Yud all the time (if you considered it was a Vav and still want to add ink that's game over - the Shem is pasul from the start). But if you do consider that, there's no reason to touch the letter! If it's a Yud, it's a Yud and period.
The only thing you would accomplish is that aesthetically the Shem would look less problematic i.e. without a long Yud. However, the problem here is not aesthetics but the very validity of this Shem.
Agree?
YK
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