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Having completed the megillah and having been studying the appropriate halacha for two years, the time had come to start the serious work of a sofer, that of repairing sifrey torah.
A sofer's work here fundamentally breaks into two parts - checking and fixing.
One can roll a scroll from start to end looking for faded sections, blots, tears, holes etc. in a little under an hour if its in reasonably good nick, but after going through 7 in one session at Edgware Reform Synagogue your wrists ache, your arms ache, your neck aches, your back aches and your legs ache. In truth you are one big ache! I had discovered the down side to Sofrut!
On the plus side, I had seen 7 very different scrolls each with their own individual character and each containing some ornamentation or special touch by a individual scribe trying to put their signature on the work - as it were.
One heavy kabbalistic scroll had weird taggin and additional large letters throughout. Another had a beautiful bridging taggin design right at the end (see diary 7), the scrolls only ornamentation. More importantly, I had discovered some problems that made some scrolls pasul (invalid for public reading) and these would require some attention.
One error was literally a text book case and is described in detail in the keset hasofer (the inkwell of the scribe).
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