Writing on Red Gvil!

My posts are usually concise write-ups about Halacha discussions. This post is different - an open and honest account of my first time writing in Gevil parchement, opposed to the standard Klaf parchement used in all scrolls today. 


For quite a few months already, I have had this obsession of getting a Gvil to write on. It's really difficult to purchase one - I tried Mea Shearim safrut stores, Machon Gvil, fellow Sofrim, to no avail. I eventually saw Binyamin's posts about writing in a Yemnite-style red gvil and I asked him for assistance. He said he would send me a sample so I can have an idea, but being that he is a busy man, many months have passed and I gave up on it.


Just before Pessach I received this tube from the mail with a small but beautiful red gvil, a bottle of carbon ink, a very good reed and a note from Binyamin, excusing himself for the delay. No need to excuse - you made my day.

It turns out that the small piece of Gvil was perfect for a Menorah-shaped Lamnatzeach, which I spoke about in depth in my last post. As we have seen, this is a kabbalistic piece with a very specific connection to Sefirat Haomer, so the timing was perfect - I wrote it just before Pessach.


So I made the sirtut, evenly spaced and couldn't wait to start writing. Although I had a carbon-ink of my own - DioLanetzach - I wrote with Binyomin's ink as he advised me. After all, I know absolutly nothing about this parchement so I prefer not to take risks.


I start writing. The letters are all smudging and i can't get it right. I was sure I messed up this Gvil, which I waited so long to write on. But you will not believe what was my mistake - I'm even embarassed to admit. Well... being that I always wrote on klaf, I always instinctivaly take the klaf and start writing in the inside side - i don't even think. In my rush to get the Lamnatzeach ready, I did the stupiedest mistake possible - I wrote in the klaf-like side of the Gvil, which is the wrong one. I knew that. You must write in the outside layer, which in this klaf is super shiny and sooth. That's what I call starting with the left foot.


So I turn the gvil and must start doing all the sirtut again! Duh! But once I start writing - in the correct side - it all feels right. The ink flows well, the reed is steady and most importantly, the Gvil is unbelievably smooth and pleasant to write on. I couldn't stop thinking how cool it was to write in the way Moshe Rabbeinu wrote his Torah Scolls (yes, he used Gevil). The less strentgh you apply, the better is the result. As I had absolutly no training for writing in this way, I was learning as I was writing. It was similar to writing in Klaf but not the same. To illustrate the difference, it's like playing tennis in clay and then playing in a hard court. You must adjust your swing and many plays come out differently. In short:

• The Gvil is very shiny and in my opinion, more beautiful than the Klaf. The redness of this Gvil gives that “deluxe” feeling that is hard to match.
• The parchment is incredibly smooth. Perhaps because of how the leather treated, I’m not sure, but this feature really stands out.
• Also, the actual writing must be done in a much more smooth way, almost like painting a canvas. You need simple, precise strokes and unlike the klaf, you rarely need to add ink in the letters or work on them too much.
• I wrote with a thin bamboo reed and it was tricky to get the flow of the ink right. I eventually adapted and found my way, but again, the actual cutting of the reed differs from feather.
• The letters dry in a matter of seconds, while in the Klaf it can take more than a few minutes.
• The reed is not as sharp as a feather and the writing has a simpler look, with less details and strokes. For instance, I could only make simple, bare Taguin, as opposed to the usual Zayin-shaped Tagim.
• Overall, I would say it’s easier to write in Gvil with a reed because the writing flows easier and you can write quicker.

It was late in the night already but I managed to finish the work. But I had one big mistake - I forgot the Yud of Elokim, one of the names of Hashem. Aside from that the symmetry of the Menorah wasn't perfect and I wanted to correct a few words to make it right.

But how do you erase a letter?? Hum.. scraping I thought. So I tried to scrape a small extra Tag I made by mistake and I immediatly see that this ruins the parchement and makes re-writing on it impossible. I email Binyomim and he says to erase with cottom-bud and water. Water! The #1 enemy of the Klaf is used to fix mistakes in the Gvil - intriguing. And by then I'm thankul I didn't use Dio Lanetzach, which is water resistant and therefore unusuble in Gevil! As mentioned in the Keset Hasofer, you are alowed to erase the Mem Sofit from the word Elokim and rewrite the forgotten Yud + a new Mem since this word is not a Shem if it has no Yud. The erasing was easy and re-writing is very easy and quick, unlike in Klaf which takes work and very much attention. Below, the pics I took before my corrections:

The Parchement - Klaf or Gevil?

Torah Scrolls were always written in the "Gvil", the outer part of a fully-grown kosher animal's skin - sheep, goat, deer and so on (see image in the right, credit to the Gewil Institute). That's how Moshe Rabbeinu, the Ran and Rambam wrote their own Sifrei Torah and that was the only parchment used by Jewish scribes throughout the centuries.

As I wrote in my post about the Kulmus, around 700 bce the feather quills started to become immensely popular among scribes in general and, specially in Europe, many sofrim started to favor these quills instead of the "original" reed quills. The parchment was also improved and the European scribes started to write not on the outer, but on the inner part of the animal's skin, because it was more smooth and thus suitable for the delicate feather quills (reed quills are more sturdy and can write in either Gvil or Klaf. Feather quills don't write well in Gvil). This inner part of the animal's skin is called "Klaf" (קלף) and eventually all Ashkenazi scribes switched for this parchment and the feather quill altogether, for both Mezuzas and Torah Scrolls. The Gevil went "out of fashion", so to speak.

The Ashkenazi Rabbis accepted these changes and an all Ashkenazi Torah Scrolls are written in Klaf until this very day.

But the Sephardi world was less influenced by these changes and the Sefardi sofrim kept using reed quills and Gvil parchement, like the original Sifrei Torah. However, as the Sephardi Jews started to leave the Arab world it seems that they were influenced by the Ashkenazi way of writing and many Sefardi scribes today do use feather quills and Klaf, a surprising fact. Virtually all parchments produced in Israel are "Klaf", not "Gvil/גביל".

Last week I luckily found a great Yemenite website which is pushing for the "resurrection" of the Gvil parchment (read "The Gewil Torah Scrolls are Popular once Again" - take it with a grain of salt...). The Yemenite Jews follow the Rambam's customs blindly and as I noted, the Rambam wrote his own Sefer Torah in Gevil, so this campaign really makes sense. But they claim that a Rabbi Mordechai Eliahu, the former Sephardic Chief Rabbi, has a Gvil Sefer Torah, so I guess many Sephardim will like this campaign as well since their older Sifrei Torah are also written in Gvil.

It's easy to differentiate between a Gvil Torah Scroll and a Klaf one. The Gvil scroll is dark in the inside (where the text is written) and lighter in the reverse side; the Klaf scroll is the exact opposite.

Yemenite Gewil Scroll (note the reed quill in the scribe's hand)

Ashkenazi scroll. Note the white klaf color

I was so fascinated by this story that I decided to make a field trip to a klafim factory in Jerusalem. I saw the whole process and the owner explained to me that besides all the Gewil vs. Klaf story there was another interesting development.

Until very recently, all klafim were made out of skin of fully-grown animals. But the Rabbinic authorities always praised the skin of a "Shlil" (שליל), or unborn animal, even tough it was unpractical to write a Sefer Torah from a Shlil - you need dozens of fetuses and that was hard if not impossible to find. But 30 years ago someone in the klafim business heard that the big slaughter houses in the US and Europe had dozens of "shlil" everyday in their factories and they didn't have any use from them. Since then all the klafim factories buy these shlils and make a super-smooth klaf out of it. So our klafim became even better!

The klafim process, as I saw it:
1- Put the skins in chemicals for 4 weeks.
2- Take it out and remove the hairs.
3- Hang it for a few days so it can dry.
4- Stretch it for a few days.
5- Remove the remaining impurities.
6- Cut the Klaf to the desired thickness and size.

The Story of the Kulmus

The Kulmus is the feather a Sofer uses when writing in the Klaf. The previous statement is actually not entirely accurate – the kulmus is not necessarily a feather, in fact, the original kulmus was made from reeds. Let me explain. The Sefer Torah written by Moshe Rabbeinu wasn’t written like ours – he used reed quills, which are bamboo-like wood pencils. Reeds are viewed positively by Chazal, who said we should be “Soft as a reed and not hard like a cedrus” and for centuries reeds had the merit to be used for scribal writing.

Safrut is not “vacuum-sealed” and it was influenced by the calligraphy of the gentiles. Until 700 BCE, reeds were the most common writing instrument and that explains why the original Halacha is that Hebrew scribes must write a Sefer Torah with reeds. After 700 BCE, feather quills were "discovered" and became increasingly popular for writing purposes (source). In fact, some of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which are dated around 150 BCE were written with feather quills rather than reeds (source). That explains why the Ashkenazi scribes stopped using reeds, rather favoring the popular and "new" feather quills. I've also heard that the reeds in Europe were not as good and sturdy as the reeds found in the Middle East, and if true, this is another piece of this puzzle.

The main pro of using feathers is the fact that it stays sharp for longer than a reed – at least twice as long. Reeds are wood-pencils and wood wears out very quickly, forcing a scribe to constantly cut it sharp (it’s critical for a Sofer to have a sharp Kulmus, otherwise the Taguim will not come out properly).

The Sefardim however kept the original tradition of reed kulmusim by and large and until this day Safrut stores sell reeds alongside with feathers in their shelves. Because of the sharpening issues the Sefardic scribes usually don’t do the Taguim themselves, they will rather finish the Parsha and hand it over to a Metaieg, a Sofer who specializes in writing the Taguim.

The Poskim have subscribed to the feather quills and will allow the Sofer to use any instrument to write, even though it’s clear that the original Kulmus was from reeds.

In fact, a few other alternatives have appeared now that we are living in a technology-intensive world:

• Plastic kulmus, which is sold already sharpened, that is available for cheap and it’s quite good. I’ve used it in my first Meguila.

• Steel kulmus, which is pretty much a fountain pen made in the shape of a feather quill. I’ve tested it but it didn’t work well for me. And it’s expensive.

• Gold-dipped feather Kulmus. This is one really expensive, but you can write a whole Sefer Torah without having to sharpen your quill.

Aside from the obvious advantage of not needing any sharpening, the plastic/steel/gold kulmus hve another great pro. When writing with a feather, you will have to always cut it in the same size, in order to ensure that all the lines are written uniformly. But in practice that’s very hard to accomplish and, unless you are a master scribe, the letters will come out different in every column - sometimes thinner, sometimes a little thicker and that's not aesthetically good. With a plastic/steel/gold kulmus all the letters will be the same, effortlessly, since you don’t have to sharpen it.

So next time you see a Sofer writing with a (special) fountain pen, don’t shoot him. It’s permissible to write with other instruments besides feather quills.

Feather Quills (sharpened/ unsharpened)

Plastic Kulmus

Reed Kulmus (sharpened/ unsharpened)

Keset Hasofer and my Amazing Find

Countless books were written about Safrut throughout the centuries. The library of a Sofer must surely include the basics: Tur, Shulchan Aruch, Mishnat Sofrim (authored by the Chafetz Haim) and the Talmud passages relating to the writing of Sefer Torah, Tefillin and Mezuzot. 

But anyone trying to get down to the practical Halacha will soon find that the plethora of information in this subject makes it difficult to get the final answer of rather basic questions, like the permissibility of writing with feathers, opposed to reeds. This question is a very telling example. If one will only look at the Tur and Shulchan Aruch he will conclude that it's prohibited to write with feathers, as stated in these books. But, hey, all Ashkenazi sofrim do write with feathers, so what is going on? 

That's when the Keset Hasofer comes into the picture. The author of the popular Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, Rabbi Shlomo Ganzfried, wrote the Keset to organize and give a final answer to all Safrut-related questions. Like he did in the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, Rabbi Ganzfried compiled this book in a way anyone could understand and the Keset Hasofer was accepted as the last word for all Ashkenazi sofrim. For instance, he writes that the minhag of the scribes is to use feather quills and that there's absolutely nothing wrong with this practice. The final answer and his guide is the practical Halacha followed by Sofrim up to this day. 

One of the leading rabbis of European Jewry in the first half of the nineteenth century, the Chatam Sofer said that no sofer could start to write a Sefer Torah, Mezuza or Tefillin before mastering the Keset Hasofer. He wrote a glowing Haskama (letter of aprobation) featured in the beggining of the Keset Hasofer, alongside with the Haskama of the Tzanz Rebbe, also known as the Divrei Chaim.

In later editions, Rabbi Ganzfried included additional notes and also a list of how the parshiot should be written, and correct spellings (he draws from the Minhat Shai, discussed here).

Having all this in mind, I knew I had to buy the Keset Hasofer but I couldn't find it anywhere. I tried the usual book shops in Jerusalem, to no avail. So I forgot about it. I started to search for another important work, the Torah Shelema of Rabbi Kasher, and a friend directed me to a used-books shop in Mea Shearim. The smallest bookshop I've ever seen, this shop was specialized in old books but it is almost impossible to find anything there - all books, from the Zohar to Feldheim, are mixed together. So I decided to leave, but in my last look back something got my attention - a very old Keset Hasofer.

Unable to hide my excitement to the shop keeper, I was really happy to see that the book was in mint condition, despite its age. As I opened the front page, I saw the date - 1902. And I could also read the name of the previous owner in the top - "Aharon Toisig" along with a stamp from the son of Rabbi Ganzfried stating that "anyone possessing this book without this stamp is liable for stealing". You can infer from this warning that there were people printing this popular sefer without the permission of Rabbi Ganzfried's family. 

I was sure this was no coincidence - this book was destined to come to my hands! So after some half hour discussing the price, I got this book for 120 shekels, or 30 dollars, a bargain.

Below are some pictures of this sefer.