[Avodah] Modern Day Sifrei Torahs

[Jesse Abelman]

RTK:  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."

RMB:  Clearly the Rambam in this ikkar means semantics, not syntax. Now,
changes in the text that change meaning would be included, but not
spelling differences that do not impact even translation. Otherwise,
how would TSBP be part of the same ikkar?


JA: I think there may be a fundemental misunderstanding of the Rambam here,
which needs to be clarified.  However you understand the 8th ikkar broadly,
as being about general concepts, meaning,"semantics," in RMB's words.  It is
also explicitly about syntax (and not just syntax, but morphology as well,)
The Rambam's formulation of the ikkarim is in his first comment on the 10th
chapter of Sanhedrin in his Mishnah after the introduction.  (The ani
ma'amin which RTK so carefully parsed is a later reformulation, not the
Rambam's language at all.)  In it he says explictly (this is my translation
of R. Kapach's translation of the original Arabic, the emphasis), "EACH
LETTER which is in it has wisdom and wonders beyond words to whomsoever God
gives understanding..."  It is clear that he means this to include spelling
in the recieved Torah text, because he also paskins this way in Mishnah
Torah.  In hilkhot Sefer Torah chapter 7 halakha 11 he specifically says
that plene and defective spellings (Maleh and Chaser) pasul a Sefer Torah.
For the Rambam, the Torah text of the Ben Asher Sefer Torah IS the EXACT
Torah Moshe brought down from sinai, including spellings, and all other
versions are simply wrong, and are pasul for that reason.

The truth is, this is a makhlokes Rishonim, which made it into the Shulchan
Arukh.  The Rema mentioned earlier in the conversation follows the standard
Ashkenazi view that we don't know plene and defective spellings, and so we
do the best we can.  The Mechaber, in the same siman, follows the Rambam.
I'm not really sure how to reconcile the Rambam with the empirical evidence
that mistakes have crept into the transmission of the Torah text since
Sinai, but I think it is clear that he believes that they have not, or
rather, that Ben Asher reflects an unmistaken text, even if other texts do
have mistakes.

   Jesse Abelman
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