CONTACT
Please contact Jamie Shear, scribe, artist, directly with any questions
or inquiries that you might have.
OUR BLOG
Text goes here
CONTACT
Please contact Jamie Shear, scribe, artist, directly with any questions
or inquiries that you might have.
OUR BLOG
Text goes here
CONTACT
Please contact Jamie Shear, scribe, artist, directly with any questions
or inquiries that you might have.
Scribal Arts in the Classic Texts
“My son, be careful in your work, for your work is heavenly work. If you leave out one letter or add one letter, you destroy the whole world.”
- Rabbi Yishmael to Rabbi Meir the scribe, Eruvin 13a
The halachot of writing a Torah, Tefillin and Mezuzah are among the most detailed in the Talmud. Every letter has a shape, a place and a law. In this session we open the classic texts together.
We learn from the sources, from my years at the writing desk since 1994, and from the parchment itself: real letters and scrolls on the table, and the questions that come up when a sofer sits down to write.
For adults in the community: synagogue study evenings, adult education and Scholar-in-Residence weekends. Text study, discussion and plenty of questions.
Bring it to your community: jshear@ktavtam.com
Missing its small foot. Is it still a yud?
With its kotz, the letter is complete. Menachot 29a.
Uchtavtam: every letter whole and clear.
Copied from a written text, never from memory.
The sofer's tools, as the halacha describes them.
Completing a Sefer Torah, letter by letter.
A new Sefer Torah, open in the aron.
After the text study, everyone writes a few letters with a quill.
The tagin, and parchment around every letter.
Topics for Discussion
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Kotzo shel yud. Menachot 29a: Moshe sees Rabbi Akiva drawing heaps of halachot from the crowns of the letters. Even the smallest point of the yud matters. Without it, the letter, and the scroll, is not kosher.
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Uchtavtam: a complete writing. Shabbat 103b reads "and you shall write them" as ktivah tamah, a complete writing: every letter whole, clear and separate.
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Heavenly work. Rabbi Yishmael's warning to Rabbi Meir (Eruvin 13a), and why one letter too many or too few can undo a whole scroll.
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The halachot of STaM. Every letter surrounded by parchment (Menachot 29a), writing from a written text and never from memory (Megillah 18b), the klaf, the ink and the quill, and how a sofer checks his work.
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Each topic is studied from the original sources, with real letters on klaf in front of us.
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For the Kabbalah and Chassidic side of the letters, see Hebrew Letters and Kabbalah Art.
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Jamie Shear
Good questions around the table.
Texts, discussion and quills in the community.
A community sees a Sefer Torah up close.
Families reading from a Torah scroll.
A family sees their Sefer Torah in the studio.
A new Sefer Torah enters the synagogue.
Simcha at a Hachnasat Sefer Torah.
Donor and scribe beside the new Torah.
Jamie Shear with a newly finished scroll.
Bring It to Your Community
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Each session is planned with your rabbi or education director, to fit your group and your time.
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It can be a single evening, a series of study sessions, or part of a Scholar-in-Residence weekend, together with a hands-on scribal arts workshop or a talk on Hebrew Letters and Kabbalah Art.
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To plan it for your community, write to me at jshear@ktavtam.com.