Commercially Viable
This video shows a sofer writing a sefer Torah. This sofer has a good hand, writes at a nice pace, and can ask a decent price. But one can also tell how the sefer Torah industry has commercialised the process, allowing for better productivity.
Note the following:
1) The sofer is writing on a light table, which means he does not have to worry about planning the spacing and can just trace over the letters. This saves a lot of time. This also minimises mistakes and saves time of repairs.
2) The quill is a plastic kulmos with a repository, which means you need to dip it into the ink every few lines instead of every few letters. Also you do not need to sharpen it and make new quills. Both of these save time.
3) The klaf today is more refined and smooth, easier to write on. Not uneven and rough like the old days. I'm sure lots of "mei klaf" is added. This enhances writing speed and quality of writing.
4) Double sirtut. Again this enhances quality and neatness.
5) The tagin / crowns will be added afterwards by a metayeg with a repidograph. This saves time and money, and means that the sefer could be finished sooner. For 80 - 90 shekels per yeriya you can get beautiful tagin done.
With all the above new "inventions", the sofer can write approximately one omud an hour. With good results. That means on a good day he can write two yeriyos and can easily complete a Torah within 6-8 weeks, from beginning to end. This is somewhat the norm in today's market for Sephardic Torah's, where sofrim are expected to write 4 seforim a year. Someone can work on the crowns while he writes further yeriyos. The checking is easy and clean, probably more is achieved in the computer check (spelling and negiyos) than a manual check. Erasings prior to corrections are done by a third party who specialises in making quick and perfect mechikos. No need for the sofer to fiddle with this, wasting precious time.
What you end up with is a professional, beautiful, clean , easy to read, faultless and mistake free sefer written in a fraction of the time that it used to take.
Welcome to modern day safrus.
Some points
ReplyDeletePreperation for this type of writing is time consuming, with preparation its probably 2 columns in four hours, and few people can do 2 four hour shifts in one day.
sfardi/velish ksav uses less strokes than ashkenazi ksav.
This sofer is actually good -he is saying the os with his mouth before writing, which brings kedusha on to the ksav.
There can be many pitfalls with a metayeg, care must be taken to choose the metayeg same as when choosing the sofer.
question to the lomdim- if the metayeg is not mekadesh the shem hashem and doesn't even know he is being metayeg the shem whats the halacha.
Yes granted it is quicker to write sefardi ksav, i still think you are being generous with 2 hour preparation, the quill is plastic and pre cut, all he does is put on some mei klaf, perhaps some light sanding, this takes a few minutes
Deleteשם שלא קידש התיוג כשר, כי אין התגין עצמן מעכב. הגם שזה אינו ראוי כלל וכלל לכתחילה
ReplyDeletehttp://www.stamforum.com/2019/06/tiyug-lishma.html
ReplyDeleteRav Mualem recently told me that if the metayeg isn't mekadesh (l'shem kedushas Hashem) the tiyug of Shaimos it's still bgeder mehudar.
אני לא מסכים כלל עם מה שאתה כותב בשם הרב מועלם שליט"א
Deleteהיות שיש חיוב תגין ע"פ דין, וכן יש תגי קבלה מצד קדושת השם - בודאי צריך לתייגן לשם קדושת השם, כי הם חלק מהשם.
אלא שהיות שאין התגין מעכבין בדיעבד, גם קדושתן אינו מעכב.
כל טוב
This is what I asked him:
Deleteמתייג שלא עושה התיוג בשמות לשמה, רק אומר לשם קדושת ס"ת בהתחלה (הסופר קידש השמות) האם זה מוריד הס"ת מדרגת מהודר?
הוא ענה שזה לא מוריד.
I posted about this some months ago: http://www.stamforum.com/2019/06/tiyug-lishma.htm
הרב ירחמיאל
Deleteאני מאמין לך שהוא אמר ככה, אבל אני לא מסכים
Wow... this is a interesting setup. Reminds me of when I asked a very good sofer what technology he uses when writing, and he said: "I write exactly like the old tradition without any changes". When I visited his workplace, he had a full computer checking system controlling in real time if he skipped a letter , and the computer would also actually say the next word to remind him to repeat it verbally. So much for writing in the old way...
ReplyDelete