The International STa"M Forum

I received an email with a request to post the following sheila: I received a request from a potential client to scribe for him the kavanot of "maaseh hamerkavah." i have never endeavored to do this although the ktav itself seems easy enough. the question i have for the "olam" is if there is a specific sequence in which the maaseh hamerkavah must be written and/or specific amirot that should be said (similar to when writing a sefer torah, tefillin, mezuzot) -- basically, what, if anything, is required to undertake this project?

Please see attached. I never saw anything like this before. Does anyone know where this coming from?

New high-res images have been taken of the entire Megillah! They can be viewed at: http://www.yeshivasstam.com/maharash This is the only extant work of STaM  by a Chabad Rebbe that is still in its perfect original form. There is another Megilla written by the Rebbe Maharash which is housed in the library of Agudas Chasidei Chabad. It, however, underwent an extensive "makeover" by a Brooklyn Sofer in the 1940s. It therefore has lost its original qualities. G-d willing the complete Megillah will be posted in time the Yohrtzeit of the Rebbe Maharash - 13 Tishrei. It should be noted that the Rebbe wrote of the Rebbe Maharash: http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=15753&st=&pgnum=29 "בקי הי' ואומן בכתיבת סת"ם. לכל אחד מבניו נתן מגילה כתובה בכתי"ק ... כן ישנם מזוזות גכתי"ק. People mistakenly believe that he did not write מזוזות. This is clearly inaccurate based on the above testament of the Rebbe. It should also be noted:

In connection to the Yorzeit of the אר"י ז"ל 👆 from ספר שיח סופר כלל וא"ו

I gave my Sefer Torah for repairs. This is one of repaired amudim. Is it quality work?

I found this chart listing the shemot that are Chol or Kodesh according to the Keset HaSofer, Kol Yaakov, and to הרה"ג הרב אלישיב זצ"ל as brought down in his Sefer נקדש את שמך From the Or LaSofer online Forum for Soferim. https://drive.google.com/a/vth s.org/file/d/1Z8BhQqlhhqzMTSLG WEB0_Phnn97EFuag/view?usp= drivesdk x

נשאלתי:  האם מזוזה שקבועה מאחרי הדלת או לפניה [פונה כלפי חוץ, ולא כלפי חלל הפתח], כי אי אפשר לקבעה בחלל הפתח כראוי לה לכתחילה, בגלל מבנה או צורת המשקוף. האם יש צורך לעשות מאמץ ולהוציא הוצאות יתר כדי לחפור לה מקום בחלל הפתח, או שהיות שאפשר לקבעה לפני או אחרי הדלת בדיעבד כדינה, אין צריך לטרוח יותר? בהשקפה ראשונה נראה לי שהיות שבמצב ההוה אי אפשר לקבעה בחלל הפתח, אינו חייב לטרוח טירחא מיוחדת לעשות אופן שיוכל לקבעה שם ע"י חפירה וכיוצא בזה. לא מצאתי מקור ברור לדבר זה לעת עתה, לא לחייב ולא לפטור. וכן צ"ע האם יש במקרה כזה וכדומה - חיוב [חז"ל] להוציא עד כדי שליש יתר מכדי דמיו לקיים מצוה מהודרת? כלומר, האם מבחינה כספית חייב להוציא עד חצי מכדי דמי המזוזה, כדי לקבעה בסף בצורה יותר מהודרת, כשם שיש מצוה לקנות מזוזה כתובה מהודרת יותר, אם אפשר לו לקנותה עד חצי מדמי מזוזה זולה, כמבואר בשו"ע בנוגע לאתרוג. אודה לכל מי שיש בידו להעיר בנושא.

Sholom uvrocho, I wanted to ask about the following Torah. Please see picture below. Did you see anything like that?

Can someone write that he's writing leshmah or do Shomah ke'oneh in order to make his Sta"m or Shemos Leshmah? I was recently asked this question and do not recall ever seeing the question, if any one has mareh mekomos it would be appreciated

I recently got some קלף for a second מגילת אסתר, and I see that the lines were done for the עשרת בני המן daf a bit different than normal. Instead of the page dividing evenly into 11 lines, there are 10 lines that are equal, but the 11th line is smaller than the rest of the lines. I assume that it is the correct layout, but my question is witch line should the כתב be based on? I know for sure it cannot be the larger lines because then the כתב for the 11th line would jump out of the 11th line. I will try to get a picture of the lines בעזרת ה soon.

ב׳׳ה The minhag from the arizal is to write a yud in the first letter ה׳ of שם הוי׳ and a vov in the second letter ה׳. However, concerning the last ה׳ of the שם, according to earlier mekubalim, it would seem that there was a letter yud that was stressed within it. In the perush Dan Yadin of R' Shimshon of Astropoli ז׳׳ל on sefer Karnayim, he mentions that there is a machlokes mekubalim in the tzura of the letter yud within the last letter ה׳ of שם השם and a maskana on how to write it. Unfortunately, the מו׳׳ל did not print the pictures of the letters that were obviously in the original manuscript. I was curious if any sofrim on this forum might know what it referred to, or, at least find it interesting as I did.

ב׳׳ה The reason given for sirtut is to meyasher the ksav and for yofi haksiva and halacha le'Moshe etc. In the following two cases it appears that the sirtut may hinder the ksav rather than help it, and was wondering your thoughts. First case is the asvan ravravan, the large letters. The letters are not written on the sirtut itself, but with the sirtut disecting the letter in half. This can be easily discernible at a glance and gives the apearance of the letter cut in half by the sirtut. In addition, when writting a large letter since the sirtut, because there is a larger amount of ink and it is right in the middle of the letter, the ink tends to bleed more into the sirtut, making it harder to write properly. Perhaps this is a narisha svara but it would make more sense to rub out the sirtut in before writing this letter were it not for the divrei kabala that it needs to be there... Example of where the sirtut is easily visible. Second case is where you need to writ

What do they retail for (with putting on) in the NY/NJ area? Which maker/hechsher do you prefer (quality and/or halachically) and why?

Thoughts on if this entrance to kitchen needs a Mezuzah?

In preparation for restoring a sefer Torah or part thereof, one needs to check if there's loose ink. This is typically done by lightly rubbing over it with a cloth. May one do this over entire amudim or is there a chashash of mechikas Hashem? If the entire amud can be done with a few swipes of the rag, a complete sefer can be gone over in under an hour. If one may not touch the Shemos it becomes a daunting task. One might think that mima nafshach, if the ink is attached to the klaf, going over it with a cloth won't do anything and if it lifts it off the klaf, it's because it's already loose and not considered attached to the klaf/pasul. However, based on my initial research, both Harav Elyashiv and Harav Mordechai Eliyahu held there's a problem of mechikas Hashem. According to Piskei Halachos, Harav Elyashiv said to leave the Shemos untouched and if and when the ink falls off on it's own then it must be fixed. (Until then you don't have to assume it's

Someone wrote that there's no need to be machmir by ribua hatefiros, particularly Sephardim and this doesn't require any tikun and can be worn with a bracha as is. So he's claiming that there's no need for the corners to be 90 degrees/square. This is news to me. I've no doubt that Rav Friedlander would have paseled this. Someone else suggested fixing it without opening the bayis even though it's sealed with glue. On top of the issue with correcting the ribua once sealed, if one would fix without opening it, the hole needs to be extended and the charitz widened without tearing the gid and that would leave a considerable gap between the corner tefiros. If opened, the hole can be widened then the original side filled.

What are your thoughts? 

There's some discussion among experts about this. The assumption is that it's not connected.

As some of us are aware, the primary issue with this (and a few other) computer programs is that they aren't limited to identifying textual errors. Hence, there's many results to review and while the program is about perfect in finding errors, it may place them in the wrong category. This makes review of the results more difficult. Is there a way to limit the Duk program to identifying textual errors only?