MEKOTZETZ
The above parshios seem like decent tefilin however they were made on an assembly line and the sofer has no rebbe or no yiras shamayim, and the metayag is definitely a young bochur who has no idea what he is doing and its very possible that he is not mekadesh -which again on tagim wouldn't pasel.
None of the following pasul the parshios but are wrong :
alef beis yosef in ksav ari
eikev habeis to long
gimel head should be square-it should be rosh not gag ,
eikev hadalet too long
eikev hay too long sometimes right foot is in middle of gag as second hay of hazeh
hay of shem not according to kabala -these are ari parshios
vav missing tag-ari
zayin-is long ,head is not square לא יהא רגלה ארוך מב' קולמסים,וראשה- ויהיה מרובע
ches makel too short הוא כמו תג גדול
yud-MEKOTZETZ for those who need source that tag elyon should be longer then kotz see pm"g
kaf- square inside
LAMED IS MEHUIDAR YAY IT HAS THE RIGHT KOTZ HIGHER first lamed seems as not mukaf gvul also looks like flag not vav וראשה של הצואר יהיה עגול
mem sofit ולא ימשוך הגג לצד שמאל הרבה ובדיעבד יגרור המותר
nun head is too wide ולא יותר רחב מראש הזיין(hiz zeins heads are also too wide)
shin middle regel connects to right regel-seeשבעת
THE WORST PART IS NOBODY EVER TOLD THE SOFER THAT HE IS NOT WRITING PROPERLY.
CONCLUSION,bdieved (after the fact that they were written) these tefilin are kosher (not kosher bdieved) all mem sofits should be scratched.
As per Beis Hastam's comment, clearly this sofer does not write properly, although kosher, I found a lot of things I needed to repair so as to bring the parshiyos up to a Lechatchillah standard. Indeed I would classify it as a more difficult parsha to check and would not work with such a sofer until he improved. However they were in someone's tefillin for 5 years (purchased in a judaica shop) and as per my policy to fix as much as possible and try and save the parshiyos, I did the following:
ReplyDelete1. Added the left blita on the lower yud of Aleph to make the Aleph's Arizal
2. Fixed some of the spacing (such as the word G'vulecho")
3. added ink in a kosher way to the right side of the first letter or some words or the left side of the last letter of the previous word so as to close larger gaps of 3 yudin between words
4. Added ink to the right side of some of the raglayim of daleds and hays so as to thicken them so they are more to the right of the gug
5.Likewise, added ink to the beis to reduce size of ekev and right side of mem sofit, to again, lessen the blita on the upper left.
6. In some of the more extreme cases above, I scratched to enhance the end result, but only after adding ink.
7. I did not bother with the tagei lamed since these parshiyos will never be mehudar anyway.
8. fixed thin chiburim or incorrect chibburim (such as shin)
9. Fixed some thin, disconnected tagin
10. repaired some top heavy nuns.
Using a rapidograph it took me about an hour to do this hagoha.
After hagoha, I felt these parshiyos were kosher lechatchillah but not mehudar, which was a level I was comfortable with for this particular customer.
The only thing I could not fix is the shaim hashem, that it should be al pi kabollah. The owner of the tefillin is what I would classify as "a traditional Jew" who needs Lechatchillah Kosher tefillin. I do not feel it necessary to raise kaballistic hiddurim on such level tefillin and for such a client (such as roshei hashitin, tagei lamed and shaim al pi kabollah). As mentioned previously when selling new tefillin on a level of mehudar this would be MANDATORY.
Finally, if I could add, the customer doesn't even know I made all these repairs, I generally find its easier just to do them and not confuse the customer, in the process creating ill feeling etc. I generally only tell the customer if I have no choice such as if I have to replace parshiyos (extra expense) or if there is a major problem that I am obligated to tell him about. This was not the case here.
metayeg? Why assume the sofer didn't do his own tiyug?
ReplyDeleteOf the 3 mem stumas, the first 2 are fine as is and the 3rd one is still lechatchila.
I haven't carefully looked at each beis, dalet, hei and sav but the wider ekevs, while not exact appear to be lechatchila.