Image: Putting the white High Holy Day dress on a Torah Scroll at Congregation Ner Tamid in Henderson, Las Vegas in 2009. (Photo: Linda Burnett)
Ten facts about Torah scrolls:
1. The proper Hebrew name for a Torah scroll is Sefer Torah, a book of Torah. It’s pronounced “SAY-fehr toe-RAH,” or in the Yiddish/Ashkenazic pronunciation, “SAY-fehr TOE-rah.” It means “book of Torah.”
2. A sefer Torah contains exactly 304,805 Hebrew letters in a special script. There are no vowels and no punctuation. One must study in order to be able to read or chant from the sefer Torah.
3. It takes a sofer (SOH-fehr) (specially trained scribe) approximately 18 months to produce a sefer Torah. It takes so long because every letter is written by hand, every detail has to be checked and rechecked, and there are special rules for writing the name of God. As a result of this care, the text has been preserved over the centuries.
4. The sofer writes the text in a special ink on parchment produced from the skin of a kosher animal. If he or she makes a mistake on an ordinary word, they scrape the word off the parchment with a knife and continue. If they make a mistake writing the name of God, that entire panel must be cut from the scroll and a new panel sewn in in its place.
5. A typical sefer Torah weighs 20-25 pounds, although some are as heavy as 50 pounds. A sefer Torah is both massive and fragile.
6. Reading from a sefer Torah is a public act, normally performed on Monday mornings, Thursday mornings, Shabbat and holidays. The text may be read or chanted to a traditional melody called trop. It is always translated, or a translation is provided, for all who do not understand the Biblical Hebrew.
7. We carry the sefer Torah around during the Torah reading service in a ceremony called Hakafah, (hah-kah-FAH). You may see people reaching out to touch the torah with the fringes on their prayer shawls, or with their prayer books, and then kissing the object that touched the Torah. We do this out of reverence for what the Torah represents, thousands of years of tradition, learning, and revelation. We do not worship the Torah scroll.
8. During the Torah service, and at other times, we stand when the sefer Torah is out of its cabinet, often referred to as the Ark or the Aron. We always face the sefer Torah if possible, so during Hakafah we turn to follow its path around the room.
9. On Simchat Torah, (“Joy of the Torah”) a fall holiday, we celebrate finishing and restarting the yearly reading of the Torah with singing and dancing, often with the sefer Torah itself.
10. Every synagogue has customs and rules about who may handle a sefer Torah. Generally speaking, only a person who qualifies as a member of a minyan may hold a sefer Torah. When in doubt about the custom of a particular synagogue, ask the rabbi.
I am glad you are back. I enjoy reading your blog.
Paul
Thanks, Paul!
What do you think the odds are that we will ever have Torah scrolls that are not made from a murdered animal?
Good question, LVG. Michael Croland wrote an article on the blog heeb’n’vegan that addressed the use of animal parts for ritual objects (http://heebnvegan.blogspot.com/2009/12/use-of-animal-products-in-jewish-ritual.html) but in 2010, he hadn’t heard of any movement toward a substitute for animal skin in sifrei Torah. With the growing number of Jews concerned with animal cruelty, surely there would be an interest.
From a halakhic point of view, a Torah made of something else would be pasul (not kosher). Similar concerns haven’t stopped liberal Jews from making changes when ethics required them. Reform, Reconstructionist, and Conservative Jews count women for a minyan, for example. I wonder if the time has come for a “Torah im rachamim,” a Torah with mercy?
Rabbi, how many parchment panels are there in a sefer torah?
The panels are from the skins of kosher animals, and there is no standard size. Each panel (yeriah) may contain as few as three or as many as eight columns. For detailed information on the various types of sifrei Torah, the article in the Jewish Encyclopedia is quite good. (http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/13358-scroll-of-the-law#1288)