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I saw this beautiful picture the other day of an artist illuminating a Megillah. Enjoy

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:

Using the Magnifying Lense in Safrut

One of the most important concepts of Safrut is that every word should be "Mukaf Gevil" - which means that it should be surrounded by white. For instance, when two letters touch each other there's a no Mukaf Gevil - the letters don't have their own place in the Klaf. That renders a scroll Pasul.

Often times it's difficult to know if the letters are touching only with the naked eye. "Take the magnifying lense" you think. Well, it's not that simple. Let's go step by step.

Let's say there's a letter Taf which seems to be 100% ok. But when looking with a magnifying lense you see that there's a tiny white lines separating the letter in two (Hefsek Dak). This is a case of using the magnifying class Lechumra, for a stringency, and the Mishna Berura undoubtedly says (see Biur Halacha "ot achat" here) that Sefer Torah will not be rendered Pasul because of the magnifying lense.

But what about a case of using the magnifying lense Lekula, for a leniency? For instance, a case when looking with the naked eye there's a Negia - the letters seem to be touching, but when using the magnifying lense you can see a tiny space between the letters. That assessment would bring a leniency - the Sefer Torah would be rendered kosher if you accept the use of the magnifying lense!

In this case there seems to be substantial backing for the use of the magnifying lense (Rabbi Tzvi Pesach Frank and Shut Sheerit Yisrael) Lekula and that this seems to be the "widespread Minhag amongst the Sofrim of Jerusalem". This seems to be the accepted custom to this day.

However some disagree and hold that the magnifying lense shouldn't be taken to account at all, be it for a Kula, be it for a Chumra. The Shut Tuv Taam Vadaat says that if we were to employ the magnifying glass, we wouldn't be able to drink from most waters as they have tiny insects that cannot be seen by the naked eye.

Yes, we all remember the huge controversy surrounding the New York water filters Psak.

Be it as it may, if you hold that water bugs are ok because they can't be seen with the naked eye, the same should be said in Safrut - a Negia that can't be seen with the naked eye will not be considered a Negia.

In my opinion the logic of the Shut Tuv Taam is flawless - either you take the magnifying lense to account either you don't. To use it only Lekula sounds a little odd. But in practice, all Sofrim use the magnifying lense when inspecting Torah, Mezuzot and Tefillin.

UPDATE: I did some further research into this and it turns out that Rabbi Vozner - one of the leading poskim today - says that Sofrim can and should use a 6x magnification lense. He says that a 6x magnification is what a person would normally see when paying very much attention to something. In other words, 6x magnification doesn't reveal anything "new"; it only aids the sofer to see something that he could see if he would be very attentive. And Rabbi Vozner says you can use 6x lense for both Kula and Chumra. That conforms with the position of the Shut Tuv Taam, which made most sense anyways.

The Psalms Menorah

UPDATE: see a more recent detailed post here.

One of the best-selling Safrut items is the Lamnatzeach Menora. You can see it in almost every Sephardic and Chassidic synagogue but I never knew what was the story behind it. This past Shabbos I saw an explanation in the Chatan Sofer's Bircon - see the bottom of the the picture for the Hebrew version. I will summarize it in English below.

"In the sefer Kaf Hachaim (...) is brought that G-d showed to King David and Moshe Rabbeinu the Mizmor Lamnatzeach Bineginot in the form of a Menorah, written in a golden sheet. King David inscribed this Psalm Menorah in his war shield and would meditate upon it in his wars, for protection."

That sparkled the Minhag of reciting this Psalm in this format every day and many people prefer to read it from parchment. I'm currently writing my Shir Hashirim scroll but I got so excited about this that I decided to write a large Lamnatzeach Menorah hopefully next month ii"H. Stay tuned!

Amazing Megillot #4 - Papercut on Red Leather

This is a very special and contemporary Megillat Esther made by a personal frien, Uri Revach.

It's hard to do papercut in a Megilla since the Megilla becomes too delicate and thus hard to handle. Aside from this, the papercut work hardly gets its full value since there's nothing behind it - no contrast.

So this artist came up with a solution - he stuck the Megilla in red leather, enhancing the papercut work and also giving to the Megilla a "royalty" feel. He also made the case, which is made out of wood, silver, gold and ivory. All in all, a true masterpiece.

Price upon request.

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.