Enigmatic Partial Torah
Today I received a beautiful Torah (choshuv, expensive eitzei chaim and mantel) for bedikah. It is very old, and in reasonable nice condition. However, I was stunned to discover that it was missing the entirety of sefer Vayikra and many yerios of Devarim. Additionally, there were osios chalulos both at the beginning and the end of the sefer. This implies, to me at least, that it never had a hachnossa because it was never completed! The missing parts of Devarim and Vayikra may never have been lost, but rather were never written.
Examining the tefiros and matleisim at the seams, it is obvious that the yerios were put together a very, very long time ago. This is true even of the places in which yerios are missing. So.... over 100 years ago, someone assembles a 2/3 finished sefer torah and it has been making the rounds at shuls since.
At the owner's request I am trying to assemble some more insights into this eccentric debacle - could the chevra please take a look at the photos and offer opinions as to style/locale of the ksav, the name of the sofer (the first line, Menachem Mendel, is obvious, but the second line is harder to make out), and if anyone has ever come across anything similar.
Much thanks!
Examining the tefiros and matleisim at the seams, it is obvious that the yerios were put together a very, very long time ago. This is true even of the places in which yerios are missing. So.... over 100 years ago, someone assembles a 2/3 finished sefer torah and it has been making the rounds at shuls since.
At the owner's request I am trying to assemble some more insights into this eccentric debacle - could the chevra please take a look at the photos and offer opinions as to style/locale of the ksav, the name of the sofer (the first line, Menachem Mendel, is obvious, but the second line is harder to make out), and if anyone has ever come across anything similar.
Much thanks!
The Osios Chalulos at the Beginning
Detail of Ksav
"Menachem Mendel, Sofer"
Second Line of Text
the second line reads:
ReplyDeleteפעטרינעק פון טארקא
petrineck [family name] from [city/town] turka/torka
The sefer tora is not russian csav, it seems polish. Probably was seamed together in order to send oversea as one sefer in order to follow up with the rest [2nd batch] sent later to make a hachnasa. Which maybe never came thru.
probably tvorka not torka
ReplyDeleteטורקא
Or perhaps ארקא with a kometz under the first aleph.
ReplyDeleteno it is a tes!
ReplyDeleteWhy would someone put a kometz under a Vov in Hebrew or yiddish?
DeleteI heard about a summer camp in the us that had a sefer comprised only of the 8 or so parshiyos read over the summer camp period. It was like that for years until they hired a frum director who spotted the oddity
ReplyDelete