How about the Bais of Uleovdo?
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The forum is back online...for reference and research purposes.
Dear Readers and Members, The forum has been down for over 6 months because the domain name (www.stamforum.com) lapsed and it is no longer available to re purchase. Although this forum is now defunct (it has morphed into several whatsapp groups), I have had many requests to put it back online because it contains so much information (over 1,800 posts and thousands of comments in the discussions, on a wide range of topics related to STa"M). I have therefore put the forum back online at blogger, so the address is www.stamforum.blogspot.com. The forum lasted for a decade...not a bad effort! It was pretty popular back in the days before whatsapp and managed to receive over a million hits in it's short life. It was one of the only organised forums in the STa"M world and definitely the largest in it's heyday. I would like to thank all those who cobtributed over the years, particularly the early members who helped build it up. Thanking you all, Eli
Ink, Kosher vs. non-Kosher
We all know that there is no ancient source that requires ink to be מן המותר בפיך . Possibly, as said here before, because in the olden days ink was always מן המותר בפיך and the question was never raised. It was probably self-evident. Nowadays, no decent Rav will approve an ink which is not מן המותר בפיך . Who was the first one to raise this question? Was it raised because of animal ingredients or because of non-kosher wine?
Most likely it is just a byproduct of the haschola being done in a public ceremony. They honored a few important people to write the letters of Bereishis. Or they may have had a local sofer write the letters publicly and then had the rest of the sefer written by a different sofer. It doesn't look like it was done beshita because the beis is even bigger than the other letters.
ReplyDeleteBut perhaps I am wrong?
No this isn't a by product. This is most likely deliberate as there is a m'kor for this which is Masechet Sofrim 9:1 which says the bet should have four taggin and the letters of the WORD should be extended than all the other letters. This was an original tradition - I have seen this in a couple of other sifrey, one from Morocco. http://www.sofer.co.uk/html/large_letters.html has a picture.
ReplyDeleteThis fell out of use and is now just a large bet.
At the suggestion of my safrus rebbi in New York, I'm going to write the seller and try to get an appointment to look at it. We've been discussing it and expect some interesting variations.
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