Diary 3
Diary 3 - Amalek - well and truly blotted out!
It’s amazing how daunting a small piece of k’laf, 12cms square can be. However eventually I felt I was ready and started to rule our the 22 lines that consist of the two paragraphs of the Sh'ma
found inside a m'zuzah. My sargel
broke and out came the superglue as I fixed another thorn to the wooden shaft. Clearly a lightness of touch was needed.
I also discovered that up until now I had been kind of cheating! When doing designs in the past that called for Hebrew calligraphy, I had used guidelines for both the top and the bottom of the letters. A real sofer uses only a top guideline (sirtut), and suspends the letters from that, ensuring that they are 3 kulmusim (nib-widths)) tall. I have seen student scribes who have used double sirtut since, but it isn't the normal practice.
It is at this point that you would think that I began writing the m'zuzah, but before quill is even put to parchment, there are more ritual (see diary 4 for one and below for the other).
Amalek were the cowardly nation who attacked the defenseless, the women the children and the infirm, at the rear when Israel left Egypt, and thus became the traditional enemy of the Jews (Haman, for example, was considered to be an Amalekite). Sadly there are a lot of Amalekites around today - just going under different names. As a result we are commanded :
I also discovered that up until now I had been kind of cheating! When doing designs in the past that called for Hebrew calligraphy, I had used guidelines for both the top and the bottom of the letters. A real sofer uses only a top guideline (sirtut), and suspends the letters from that, ensuring that they are 3 kulmusim (nib-widths)) tall. I have seen student scribes who have used double sirtut since, but it isn't the normal practice.
It is at this point that you would think that I began writing the m'zuzah, but before quill is even put to parchment, there are more ritual (see diary 4 for one and below for the other).
Amalek were the cowardly nation who attacked the defenseless, the women the children and the infirm, at the rear when Israel left Egypt, and thus became the traditional enemy of the Jews (Haman, for example, was considered to be an Amalekite). Sadly there are a lot of Amalekites around today - just going under different names. As a result we are commanded :
timcheh et zecher Amalek mitachat hashamyim
"you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from beneath the heavens"
"you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from beneath the heavens"
Though a lot of people behave like Amalek, no-one knows exactly who Amalek is nowadays, and besides it would be impolite to go around wiping people out, even if it is biblically ordained. (I suspect the police wouldn’t care too much for it either). So this commandment is somewhat in abeyance. Thus it falls to the sofer
to carry out this mitsvah
symbolically. Kav Hayashar 99 recounts how HaGaon Rav Heshel of Krakow would test his quill by writing Amalek or Haman and the idea became minhag
(custom). A small scrap of kosher k’laf
is taken and the sofer
writes the word and then crosses it out with three diagonal lines.
This is indeed a neat way to test a new quill. One doesn’t really care about this word, so it doesn’t matter if the quill isn’t any good and it gets messed up.
This is indeed a neat way to test a new quill. One doesn’t really care about this word, so it doesn’t matter if the quill isn’t any good and it gets messed up.
Above: My
Amalek envelope - where I keep scraps of
k'laf to write
Amalek and well and truly blot it out! Photo © Mordechai Pinchas.
At last I was ready to begin. All in all it took about four hours in about 5 sittings, when I could fit it in. The writing was, I suppose, reasonable (you can judge for yourself below) for a first attempt back then. Though looking back on it now it is truly awful! There was also a mistake (but I didn’t know this at the time).
The eagle-eyed among you will notice that the letters ayin and dalet in the first line are enlarged. The enlarged letters spell out the word ed (witness)) as the Sh'ma expresses the purpose of Israel’s existence: to serve as witness to God’s primacy as the one and only Master of the universe. More importantly we enlarge the dalet in echad (one) to ensure that we don’t read it as the similarly shaped resh which would render the phrase (heaven forbid) as 'God is acher (another)'.
Shortly after writing my first, I checked the m'zuzah on my son's bedroom and the dalet was not enlarged - it was clearly a dalet so it is not pasul (invalid), but the scribe was clearly a poor one - the writing was even worse than my first attempt, so I didn't feel quite so bad.
Mordechai Pinchas
Below: My first ever m'zuzah, well over 20 years ago - very poor writing quality, but not absolutely horrendous for a first attempt. Photo © Mordechai Pinchas.
At last I was ready to begin. All in all it took about four hours in about 5 sittings, when I could fit it in. The writing was, I suppose, reasonable (you can judge for yourself below) for a first attempt back then. Though looking back on it now it is truly awful! There was also a mistake (but I didn’t know this at the time).
The eagle-eyed among you will notice that the letters ayin and dalet in the first line are enlarged. The enlarged letters spell out the word ed (witness)) as the Sh'ma expresses the purpose of Israel’s existence: to serve as witness to God’s primacy as the one and only Master of the universe. More importantly we enlarge the dalet in echad (one) to ensure that we don’t read it as the similarly shaped resh which would render the phrase (heaven forbid) as 'God is acher (another)'.
Shortly after writing my first, I checked the m'zuzah on my son's bedroom and the dalet was not enlarged - it was clearly a dalet so it is not pasul (invalid), but the scribe was clearly a poor one - the writing was even worse than my first attempt, so I didn't feel quite so bad.
Mordechai Pinchas
Below: My first ever m'zuzah, well over 20 years ago - very poor writing quality, but not absolutely horrendous for a first attempt. Photo © Mordechai Pinchas.
