[Avodah] pitum haketores

[David E Cohen]

R' Gilad Field asked:
> Anyone know of the source for some minhag I have seen where people
> have the pitum haketores written on a klaf in ksav ashuris?

I don't have the answer, but wanted to add something else that has puzzled
me for a while about this minhag.

Permitting the writing down Torah of shebe`al peh is, in essence, a "kula."
Yes, there's a hetteir that we use all the time without thinking twice about
it, and justifiably so, but it is still, strictly speaking, a "bide`eved"
(in the colloquial sense of the word).  How, then, can there be a kiyum in
writing a beraisa in a particularly formal way, in kesav Ashuris on a kelaf?

--D.C.