Petzua daka
I was wondering whats the halacha about "Petzua daka" (Parshat ki tetze). In some older Torah's it is written with a alef, and in others with a hey... obviously one is wrong, if so, then why isn't something being done to correct this? since a Torah is pasul "even if one letter is not kosher" then it means that hundreds of shuls are reading out of non kosher scrolls...
How can we, as Sofrim claim that the Torah hasn't changed since the time of Moshe, if we have such a clear and blatant mistake? What are your thoughts on this?
How can we, as Sofrim claim that the Torah hasn't changed since the time of Moshe, if we have such a clear and blatant mistake? What are your thoughts on this?
First of all, chas veshalom to call it a blatant mistake.
ReplyDeleteAnd it doesn't depend on how old the sefer is. It depends on the mesora. The regular Ashkenazi and sefardic are different from the Yemenite and Chabad. Between Yemenite seforim and not Yemenite seforim there are even more differences, not only this one.
Check out this page:
http://www.saad.org.il/elihu/nusah.html
How could we know today if the Torah at har Sinai had it with an alef or a he? Everybody should continue with his own mesorah. In any case, there are great poskim, who can decide in such issues. For example Baal Hatanya said differently than other Ashkenazy poskim. Who are we to decide, who was correct?
And by the way, there are many other things in the Torah that according to one mesorah is kosher and according an other is not. That's the way it goes.
Behatzlacha!
" How can we, as Sofrim claim that the Torah hasn't changed since the time of Moshe, if we have such a clear and blatant mistake? What are your thoughts on this? "
ReplyDeleteLet us rememeber that 304,804 letters in all sifrei tora (except the yemenites as sofer.hu noted, that have another 3 or 4 slight changes)are exactly the same, after 3300 years of Matan Tora.
The achdus of toras yisrael throughout all the terrible and different galuyos is clearly a heavenly miracle.
If chas v'shalom the variation would be omitting a whole pasuk, or worse a whole commandment chas v'shalom, then it would be correct your calling it "a clear mistake", but the change of a hai or alef in the word 'daca' doesnt alter the meaning of the pasuk, nor the meaning, or a detail to the command - so we all hold by the correct version of the command.
It must be noted that there are different versions and customs in other areas of sefer tora that are also l'ikuva [see Shach YD 295:6 in regard to a revach parsha that is arguable if there is a parsha there or not] and other Tora laws -
this is part of the theme "taku" in the Talmud, we must wait till Mashiach comes and revives the Sanhedrin that will decide and cut these issues, till then there isn't total [100 %] achdus in the tora and the mitzva, so Am Yisrael is in galus, and the tora is in galus ...
Till Mashiach comes with the sanhedrin we must try to do our best in keeping the tora, each group according its custom, recognizing that we lack completion, and honoring our fellow Jewish other customs.
I hope this helps somewhat.