The International STa"M Forum

חצי התחתון של הנו"ן - שנכתב מתחילה על הקלף כדין, אחר שניסה הסופר לעשות איזה תיקון, חתך לתוך הקלף, ונמצא הנו"ן הזה [חציה התחתון] על קלף תלוי באויר. הדין שאות זה פסול, כי נחשב אינו מוקף גויל. וחמור דין זה של אינו מוקף גויל, מ(דין מוקף גויל של) נקב שמחוץ לדיו האות. כי נקב שמחוץ לאות, אם ניקב אחר הכתיבה כשר, כמבואר בפוסקים, משום שהיה מוקף גויל בשעת הכתיבה. אבל זו שאינה עומדת על הגויל כלל (כי קלף התלוי באויר נחשב נפרד מהיריעה), אינה מוקפת גויל (מתחתיה) גם אם אירע כן אחר שעת הכתיבה, וכן מבואר במהרי"ק וב"י ביו"ד סי' רפ. [פירוש, אות שאינה מחוברת לגמרי כדין לספר, חשיב סוג לא מוקף גויל]. תמונה של מושב הנו"ן הזו - כאשר הקלף מוגבה מהיריעה. לא ניתן לטלות טלאי מתחת לנו"ן הזו להדביקה חזרה ליריעה, וכל שכן שאין לקלף כל האות מהיריעה, ולחזור ולהדביקה במקומה. כי אין הכשר טלאי בס"ת, אלא כאשר טולה קודם הטלאי ליריעה, ואח"כ כותב על הטלאי (שנמצא כותב האות על ספר), דאם לא כן הוי פסול משום חק תוכות. כלומר, שהאות נעשית מאליה, ולא על ידי ...

Another question on the Safrut desk: Is the mem kosher if the leg of the vav would be added? Or is the connection between the chaf and vav of the mem needs to be bigger?

Well, I might as well post some basic questions involving STaM, giving everyone a good halachot review. (Of course, any comments / healthy criticisms on the ktav would be good also!) Here is one:

What are the line sizes for each Yeriah of a Sefer Torah? I was looking at a store and all the information they gave was only the length of the Yeriah.

To be written in Safrus lettering on klaf. (I just had a bunch of orders for these. Thought I'd share)

A sofer here wrote a kesuba for a wedding in two weeks time, and now, because of coronavirus, the wedding was brought forward to this week. So he needs a kesuba with a different date. Is one able to carefully and professionally erase the current date, so that the change will not be noticed? Or is it problematic to write the date on a mechika, even if you can't really see the mechika?

I'm sure many on this forum are feeling the affects of the Coronavirus in the respective communities. Here in Melbourne we have had members of our community testing positive and many people are in mandatory quarantine or self isolation. Everyone is feeling the effects in some way or another. So far the only "casualties" of the coronavirus that I have personally witnessed are pictured below: 1. I had a customer who was unwell, coughing and sneezing in my office. After he left we sprayed some Lysol, to disinfect the room. About half an hour later I noticed a beautiful mezuzah on my desk which had become ruined by the Lysol spray. I guess Lysol spray and STa'M are not a good mix..... 2. We were writing a kesubah in the office this week and the sofer doing it was using (a little too much) hand sanitizer. It dripped off his hands and onto the klaf. So just remember, it doesn't always evaporate, be careful with that stuff. We are living in strange times...

Due to the request that we should post more posts and Purim is tomorrow, I'd like to ask a question, (Since we are supposed to get ready for Peach 30 days before, and 30 days before Pesach is Purim... so I need to prepare how to ask questions!) What is the Funniest STaM incident you've experienced as a Sofer/Magiah/Socher/Batim Macher etc? And of course...  A happy Purim! 

Hi everyone The International STa'M Forum has received several requests from sofrim around the world, wanting to join to become a contributing member. As previously mentioned, we have a limited amount of those members that can author posts and as such I am requesting that if you are an active member then please post or comment periodically. If you are not, then please private email us, so that we can allow more contributing members in. Either way, you will remain a listed member of the group and be able to see all the posts and comments, all it means is that you cannot post yourself. On that note, if you are a member, and do not appear on our list of members (on the side bar or on the 'members' tab), please do advise so that we can update this. Thank you very much.