Last week I posted some thoughts in response to a public lecture given by Rabbi Reuvain Mendlowitz regarding Ksav Chabad (the Alter Rebbe's ksav). I felt he did not represent the issue fairly, and since I had received questions about it from a number of people I felt it made sense to write a general response. After I posted my response on this forum, Rabbi Mendlowitz reached out to me by email and we ended up having a respectful and productive email exchange regarding the relevant issues surrounding Ksav Chabad. His position is a lot clearer to me now, and I think he also took certain things on board that I clarified with him. The purpose of the Stam Forum (at least back in it's heyday before all the whats app groups took over) was to connect sofrim from around the world, to promote achdus and build bridges, as well as to offer support and advice. In that spirit, I felt I should write a follow up post, to clarify some of the issues and misconception...
there are quite a few places that need dots they are listed here:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.sofer.co.uk/html/dots.html
Just do it with a feather it does not have to be perfectly round just don't make it too big
thank you very much
Deletevery nice site
DeleteThanks, very kind of you to say so.
ReplyDeleteI don't mean to be "not nice" or unkind, but why is someone who has no idea about Nekudos on words in a Sefer Torah, fixing it?
ReplyDeletemany sofrim even with ksav kaballah who are not baalei korah don't know about some of the mesorah inyonim (small / big letters / dots) its not in the chomer you learn in the tests and not everyone knows about it from general knowledge (including at least one rabbi who brought me the broken vav to fix from parshas pinchas)...
DeleteFunny you should say that - I also had a synagogue wanting to me to fix the broken vav (and they weren't Teymani)so I explained kindly about the otiyot meshunot.
ReplyDeleteYes! It's unfortunately all too common. The same happened to me at a function the week of Parshat Pinchas. You should have seen the Ba'al Koreh's expression of relief when I showed him that the VAV KETIYAH was proper.
ReplyDeleteLikewise, I have had new Torahs where the computer scan determines that the all the dots are missing. That means, that even the Sofer or the Metayeg left it for someone else to do. The main thing is for these to be caught and corrected.
sometimes where I am it is very hard for people to find a sofer and they are using this sefer torah regularly so it is hard for them to send it away therefore I offered to fix it
ReplyDeletebut i thank you for your concern
Deletealberto that is very funny i had the same story with a sefer torah they were already going to take another one out but I guess they would have found the same problem by the second sefer torah