[Avodah] Modern Day Sifrei Torahs

[T613K at aol.com]

From:  Harvey Benton _harveybenton at yahoo.com_ (mailto:harveybenton at yahoo.com) 



>>A  number of sources indicate that the Sifrei Torahs we now
have in our  possession may not be the exact (letter for letter) same one as 
was
given  to Moshe Rabeinu:



Yerushalmi Taanit 4:2 and Soferim 6:4 mention  an episode
where 3 Sifrei Torah were found in the Azara of the Second  Temple
with varying texts.... 


Kiddusin 30a mentions the Vav of  Gachon as the middle letter
of the Torah. ....at the
time of the Gemara  they were not expert in chaser and yeter. 



The Rambam in Hil.  ST, 8:4 wrote about scrolls that had been
corrected using the Ben-Asher  scroll that he himself used.<<
[snip]
 
TK:  All your questions stem from one misconception.  As Rambam  formulated 
it, we say "Ani ma'amin be'emunah sheleimah shekol haTorah hametzuyah  atah 
veyadeinu hee hanesunah leMoshe Rabbeinu alav hashalom."  You  understand that to 
mean, "The Sefer Torah we have today is EXACTLY the same,  word for word and 
letter for letter, as the one that was given to Moshe  Rabbeinu.  Not one 
single mistake has EVER crept in or will ever creep in  or can ever creep in.  No 
sofer in history ever has copied a single letter  wrong or ever will, and 
every sefer Torah in the world is EXACTLY the same as  the one that Moshe Rabeinu 
received."
 
Then, since you understand Ani Ma'amin this way, when you find that some  
mistakes and discrepancies /have/ crept in over the years -- your faith is  
shaken and you don't know how you can say Ani Ma'amin anymore!
 
One major clue that you are misreading this Ani Ma'amin is that, as you  
point out, Rambam /himself/  "wrote about Torah scrolls that had been  corrected 
using the Ben-Asher scroll that he himself used"!  
 
Thus, even as he wrote the words of Ani Ma'amin, he himself was very well  
aware that changes /had/ crept in over the centuries and that not every sefer  
Torah -- and perhaps not even his own personal sefer Torah -- was demonstrably  
EXACTLY the same, letter for letter, as the one written by Moshe Rabbeinu.
 
If Rambam himself was aware that differences existed between different  
scrolls, how could he have written "shekol haTorah hametzuyah atah veyadeinu hee  
hanesunah leMoshe Rabbeinu"? Obviously, he did not understand "the Torah we 
have  is the same as the one given to Moshe Rabbeinu" to mean "the Torah we have 
is  identical in every single letter and no mistake or slight variation in 
spelling  has ever crept in."
 
What Rambam DID mean, I will discuss below.



RHB:   >> Gil Student 2001 in Parshas Vayera  Challenge and other
sources on Tikkun Soferim indicate that the Ktav of the  Torah (Ktave Ivrit or
Ktav Ahsurit) nowadays may be different that what was  given to Moshe 
Rabeinu.<<
TK:  It is known that the ktav we have now is not the same ktav that  has 
always been used, and this, too, is NOT included in "shekol haTorah  hametzuyah 
atah veyadeinu hee hanesunah leMoshe Rabbeinu."
 
 


RHB:  >> Halachic issues such as making a bracha on a  Sefer Torah
(ST) by a sofer writing it, making a bracha on an Aliya,  reading a pasul ST
publicly on Shabbas...., and fulfilling the mitzvah of  writing a ST in cases 
of
doubt are all discussed, and for the most part  ruled leniently upon. See 
Shulchan Aruch OC 143:4, and Mishna Berura.  <<
 
TK:  As long as the Sefer Torah you are using is perfect to the best  of your 
knowledge and to the best of your ability, it is not pasul, you can make  a 
bracha on it, you can have an aliyah, you can read from the Torah.  You  are 
obsessing quite unnecessarily over slight differences, as you yourself  know 
from the very sources you yourself have cited, Shulchan Aruch and Mishna  Berurah.
 
 



RHB:  >>  Yemenite ST: The Yemenite ST has at  least 3 differences
(some say 9) when compared to our ST.
They make a  bracha on reading the Torah, and so do we. They may (I do not 
know) say Zot  Hatorah
during Hagbah, while we for sure do. Is
this incongruous?  How can we (and
perhaps they) both claim to have a correct version at  the same time? <<
 
TK:  "Vezos haTorah asher som Moshe lifnei Bnai Yisrael al pi Hashem  beyad 
Moshe" does NOT mean, as you seem to think, "This Torah which we are now  
holding up in our shul is EXACTLY IDENTICAL in every detail to the sefer Torah  
that Moshe Rabbeinu himself wrote."  What it does mean, we will discuss  below.





RHB:  >> If someone from a Sefardi or  Ashkenazi background, davened
at a Yemenite minyan, would he be allowed to  make a Bracha on an Aliya, 
seeing
as his mesorah is different?  <<
 
TK:  I believe the answer to that question is "yes."

RHB:  >>  Would he
have to fast if CV a ST was  dropped in front of him? (According to 
Sfardi/Ashkenazi tradition,  the
Yemenite ST
should be viewed as Pasul, and thus perhaps not  necessitating a fast.)  <<
 
TK:  An interesting halachic shaila, you would have to ask a rav if  that 
happened, but I believe, again, that the answer is yes, an Ashkenazi would  have 
to fast if a Yemenite sefer Torah was dropped.





RHB:  >> Rambam Pr. No. 8 and Zot Hatorah  said during Hagbah, both
state that the ST we have today is the same as  that was given to Moshe
Rabeinu.  If we say either of these  two
statements, and/or teach them to our children or Baalei Teshuvot (Aish  
Hatorah
is big on Rambam No. 8), are we (or the Yemenites or both) not over  on
1. Midvar Sheker Tirchak <<
 
TK:  No, it is not sheker to say "Our Torah is the same as Moshe  Rabbeinu's."

RHB:  >>  2. Ganeivas Daat and  <<
 
TK:  No, we are not deceiving anyone.

RHB:  >>  3. Lifnei Iver (in the sense that
they may  tell it to someone else) if in fact it turns out that someone does 
not
have  an accurate (to the letter) ST? <<
 
TK:  Again, we are not deceiving anyone.





RHB:  >>  We are not doubting that the  essence of the ST that we have
today is the same as what Moshe Rabeinu had,  but only that in actual Letters
and/or Script, it may not be 100% "exactly  the same." <<
 
TK:  The statement "our Torah is the same as Moshe's" MEANS "the  essence is 
the same and the wording is as close to identical as human error will  allow 
over the course of thousands of years."
 
 





RHB:  >>  Finally, should a Sofer be  required, in advance to inform
potential purchasers of ST and/or his  services, about the current situation
regarding ST? Should he be required  to
fully disclose, that the person purchasing a ST may only be fulfilling  the
mitzvah to write a ST in a Bidieved manner?
If he does not fully  disclose this, is the resultant sale tainted?   <<
 
TK:  It seems to you that there is a halacha -- or should be a halacha  -- 
something like this:  "A sofer is halachically obligated to  state, when selling 
a sefer Torah, that slightly different texts exist and that  until Eliyahu 
Hanavi comes, he cannot be 100% certain that the sefer  Torah he has written is 
identical to Moshe Rabbeinu's sefer Torah down to  the last kutzo shel yud."   
 
 
Since as you yourself wrote, the Rambam and many other authorities over the  
centuries were well aware that slight differences had arisen between different 
 sifrei Torah, why do you suppose that none of them until you ever thought of 
 codifying such a halacha?  Why do  you suppose there is no such  halacha in 
the Shulchan Aruch or the Mishna Berurah?





>>>>>
 
As I said at the beginning, all of your questions are really one, and all  
stem from the same misconception, which we have now cleared up.
 
So what then DO we mean when we say, "Ani ma'amin shekol haTorah hametzuyah  
atah veyadeinu hee hanesunah leMoshe Rabbeinu"?  What DO we mean when we  
publicly declare, "Zos haTorah asher som Moshe lifnei Bnai Yisrael"?
 
To answer that question, you have to consider what alternative, false  
beliefs Rambam was trying to counter with his formulation of "Ani  ma'amin."  If you 
did NOT believe that our Torah is Toras Moshe, what else  might you falsely 
believe?
 
Well, here is a news flash:  Wellhausen and the 19th century Bible  critics 
and Reformers were NOT the first people in history to deny the Divine  
Authorship of the Torah!
 
Many centuries before they ever came along, there were people who said that  
the Torah was made up by people and not by G-d.  There were people who  denied 
that Moshe had ever lived or that Ma'amad Har Sinai had ever  happened.
 
There were also people who believed that G-d had given the Torah to Moshe  
but who claimed that the Jews had deliberately falsified and changed the  Torah!
 
There were Christians who claimed that they were the "true Israel" and that  
the Jews had deliberately re-written and falsified their Torah to delete all  
references to their man-god, Yoshke.
 
There were Muslims who claimed that Avraham's true heir was Yishmael, and  
that it was Yishmael, not Yitzchak, who had been bound on the altar at the  
akeida.  They said that the Jews had deliberately rewritten and falsified  the 
Torah in order to remove Yishmael from his deserved place in the  Torah.
 
There were Sadducees and Karaites who denied the authority of the Rabbanim  
and claimed that the Rabbanim could not be trusted to faithfully transmit the  
Torah.
 
Every heresy of modern times -- the denial of the Divine authorship of the  
Torah, the claim that it was written by people for their own purposes, the 
claim  that the Rabbis wrote it to bolster their authority over the ignorant 
masses --  all had their precursors in earlier times.  And it is against these 
notions  that we declare, "The Torah we have is Toras Moshe."
 
Rambam wrote in one of the Ani Ma'amins, "Zos haTorah lo sehei  muchlefes."  
Some people read it literally, childishly -- and mistakenly --  as, "This 
Torah will never change" -- and if they find that Yemenite sifrei  Torah differ 
slightly from Ashkenazi sifrei Torah, their whole emunah is  shaken!  They start 
to worry about whether they are apikorsim because they  don't say "Ani 
ma'min" with a whole heart, or whether Rambam really meant it or  knew what he was 
talking about, and so on and so on.  
 
And all this angst is over a simple misunderstanding!  "Zos haTorah lo  sehei 
muchlefes" means "Our Torah will never be EXCHANGED for another  one."  The 
Christian claim of a 'New Testament' is false, there is not and  will not be a 
'New Testament' -- nor will Hashem ever exchange His Chosen People  for some 
other People.  There is never going to be a Torah in which Avraham  is tested 
with Akeidas Yishmael.  There is never going to be a Torah in  which the day of 
rest is Sunday.  There is never going to be a Torah in  which Jesus and 
Mohammed are prophets.
 
"The Torah we have is the same one that was given to Moshe Rabbeinu"  MEANS:  
Hashem wrote the Torah and gave it to Moshe, and we have faithfully  
transcribed and transmitted it, down through the centuries, to the best of our  
ability.  We are the true heirs of the Dor Hamidbar, we learned the  Torah from our 
parents and we will teach it to our children, ad bias goel,  we are loyal and 
faithful to the Torah and we have always been loyal and  faithful to our holy 
Torah.  "Ha'azinu hashamayim va'adaberah...."  --  Heaven and earth bear 
witness that we are the same people who received the  Torah, we are the sons of 
Yisrael, and we still keep the Torah that Moshe  Rabbeinu taught us.  "Torah 
tziva lanu Moshe, morasha kehillas  Yakov."



--Toby  Katz
==========

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