What letter is this?
What letter is this? If you say Beis then what does this mean about Mezuzah #1 from this post. What I did here is isolated the yud from that picture and rotated it a bit.
What I remember learning is that if a letter looks like any other letter, even rotated, upside down etc it is a shinuy tzurah. It seems pretty clear to me that this letter, when rotated is a beis not a yud.
Rav Weiner, in the comments you mentioned that the extra part could be scraped away. I have two questions:
1. Shouldn't you cover the letters around it (since its small size might mislead the tinok) and show it to a tinok?
2. If you are machshir this Yud wouldn't it be better to add ink instead of scraping so at least it's not a safek of Chok Tochos, since Shelo Kesidran is derabanan. Shouldn't we treat this like the case of a square Chaf Sofis which is brought in the teshuvah of the Tzemach Tzedek?
Just after I posted this, my 6 year old son and his friend came home from school and saw this on the screen they both said its a beis. One said its a funny beis that looks a bit like a nun.
ReplyDeleteShalom Aaron,
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the forum!
I think you meant the post "Shailos on Tzuros Haosis" that Dovid posted last week (please clarify)
Why should we rotate the letter in order to search a shayla. I don't accept the concept that - any letter if turned upsidedown or sidewards will resemble another letter, is considered a shinuy tzura.
So therefore I think there is no problem at all in regard to this yud, and [as a rule whatever is perfectly kosher] he could scrape, in order to make it nicer.
I know there are later acharonim (exa. mishmeres stam) that make an issue of this, if you have reason to continue the issue, please do so.
I will try to follow up.
Aron, I agree with you on the second point that it is always halachically better to add ink when making a tikkun than to scrape. However on the first point, I don't know how correct it is to take a letter out of context of the ksav by covering or ropping the other letters.
ReplyDeleteIn the case of your son seeing the image on your screen, that is not a shaalos tinuk. You need to show them the actual ksav, other beises, othe yudim, other nunim, and then the one in question, in real life size.
If you isolate, crop, rotate, enlarge etc, all these things may alter the child's decision, particulary with yudim