<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:large" dir="rtl">ן </div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif">In practice: </font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif">What my LOR will rule - that will be the absolute truth. Mara DeAtra - master of specific location determines the Absolute Truth. Normalcy is restored, all is well with the world. </font></div>
<div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><br></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif">Homiletically: Malbim claims that the "Elokecha not Elokeichem Defense" is based on Contracts. "Naaseh VNishma" was consent, but until the effective date of the Covenant they were Eino Metzuveh. The Covenant only became effective Upon Delivery of the Luchot! Once the Luchot were "dropped" , the BY retained their "Status quo ante" and never advanced to their new Covenanted status. After the Eigel, they remained Bnai Avraham. They were to blame only for not allowing the Covenant to take effect! That was Moshe Rabeinu's defense, as per Malbim. </font></div>
<div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif">Segueing - about the Luchot: </font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br>
</font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif">Were the Luchot delivered as one big unit? Or - were they delivered as individual letters and paragraphs? Perhaps the Gmara Midrash concept that Luchot with parts of letters hanging miraculously in place - and readable from all angles - tells us a message. To attach to One Hashem, there could be only One Covenant, and One Klal Yisrael an eternal being - and only One Torah. </font></div>
<div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif">Homiletics aside, for each specific letter, what is the "Law of the Letter"? </font></div>
<div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif">Micha-One and Micha-Two both stood at Har Sinai, debating the Luchot. </font></div><div class="gmail_default">
<br></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif">According to Micha-One: Moshe saw the Luchot blank, and saw the writing of each stroke of each letter. In proper order, that became Luchot Habrit. </font></div>
<div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif">Au contraire says Micha-Two: Moshe was given the entire Luchot as a finished product. The Almighty showed Moshe FINISHED letters! He holistically read whole letters! </font></div>
<div><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif">Micha-Two adds:</font><font face="arial, sans-serif">. </font><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">Compare with Shekel shown to MR, and the New moon, or the Menorah. The letter is shown whole - the result. </span><font face="arial, sans-serif"> pictures </font><font face="arial, sans-serif">a world before the first Sofrim-School</font><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">The scribe is then asked to copy - express in ink what he saw on the Luchot. </span></div>
<div class="gmail_default"><br></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif">Existentially - let this be Aleph! </font></div>
<div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif">Let this be Yud! IMHO - my uncorroborated idea - a Yud is a dominant body, with only secondary extensions. The right bottom extension needs "humilty" shortness - so we curve it left. </font></div>
<div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif">Let this be Vav! Vav is a head-leg dyad, the leg needs the double-height of the head [two Kulmuses in vernacular] - to gain its individuation/equality, but not more. It cannot be "specially lengthened". </font></div>
<div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif">Let this be Nun Sofit! The leg is clearly lengthened and extended. [Heads up - do you begin the leg from center - or from bottom right? We are ignoring that.]</font></div>
<div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif">Let this be Zayin! The head becomes clearly defined as intact - a rectangle. The leg starts from under the middle - then thickens mid-depth- and thins at bottom! </font></div>
<div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif">Rav Aharon Cotler Ztz"al in one of the early ShU"T collections, and the Meiri in his Sefer [the main source Beit Yosef had in these Halachot] both say that - for example - a SHin is Shin - whatever base it has - flat pointed etc. - as lon g as it projects "Shin-i-ness" - it is a shin. there is no list of technical requirements at all. </font></div>
<div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif">Let us go allegory - every Jew is a Jew, a unique Shechina. A shin is a Shin. More "controversial" - yes - A Tzadi/Tzadik with reverse-Yud [mirror] on top - is not an existential issue! It reflects on the Sofer's normative competence only. </font></div>
<div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif">When Sofer writes the Sefer Torah - Sofer must adhere to norms, but they are only norms for the writer! Once it is a Shin - it is moot which base the Sofer followed. <br>
</font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif">Sofrim are trained by Micha-One! None that I know of ever saw Shlosha-Sfarim-Niftachim. Rashi and any pre-RabiYehudahHachasid Sefer - had only Micha-Two to follow. </font></div>
<div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif"> </font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif">Make three cases. </font></div>
<div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif">CASE ONE: A long legged Reish eventually becomes a Chaf Sofit. </font></div><div class="gmail_default">
<font face="arial, sans-serif">CASE TWO: VERY long leg of Vav becomes Nun Sofit</font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif">CASE THREE: Shortened Vav becomes Yud. </font></div><div class="gmail_default">
<font face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default">
<font face="arial, sans-serif">Micha did not use my Case Two - too long a leg, an overly elongated Vav looking like Nun Sofit [caveat from the source MB is quoting - - if and only if it looks like a Nun Sofit]. </font></div>
<div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif">Properly proportioned, even a giant Vav - it is completely fine. </font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default">
<font face="arial, sans-serif">Micha-One - pre-shift at first said that the Unidentified OT is a QUESTION OF FACT, an "objective truth". </font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br>
</font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif">Micha-Two a/k/a Micha-Shift says it is "</font><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">entirely existential", as in "I call them as I see them" (the baseball umpire's motto). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">Micha-One uses a "Sofer-Kopp" - the young scribe is taught the Normative OT - the ideal way that it is preferred he write. That includes the aggregate of all written rules of Safrut. From that standpoint, there [normatively only!] is a proportion which is PASSUL. </span></div>
<div class="gmail_default"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><br></span></div><div class="gmail_default"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">David-One-Point-One</span></div><div class="gmail_default">
<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">[The Greeks discovered that to attain the appearance of a straight column, one must make the top thicker, to fool the eye.]</span></div><div class="gmail_default">
<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><br></span></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif">David-One-Point-One uses the bends of "perception" to accept the normative approach only in principle. In the real world, ruler even calipers only indicate. It is the "Greek ideal" of an appearance of having the length, which then [hopefully] gives it the appearance of Vav-i-ness.</font></div>
<div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif"> Should the leg be erased, there comes a point where it has lost "Vav-i-ness" - it may then become a Yud [assuming it has Yudd-i-ness, and assuming this is a Zero-Sum call, either Yud or Vav. </font></div>
<div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif">David-Two proposes that says Short-Vav may become neither Vav nor Yud - just a nullity. Does it look like a "Too Short Vav" or like nothing? If there is no alternate letter to mistake it for - we mentally alter the letter to put it into a framework. That subconscious "normation" would count. the letter is worth a discount from the seller, but pulls through. </font></div>
<div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><br></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif">Words cannot describe graphics without technical vocabulary. </font></div>
<div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif">David-Three now takes a position that is Daat Yachid, and existential. The top of a Chet of Rashi was a strong horizontal line over two vertical legs. All agree so far. </font></div>
<div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif">Raaviyah,from thence Or Zarua found a Rabeinu Tam letter - instructions to his private Sofer. </font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif">"When you write my new Esther ... give me a Chatoteret - a hump in the middle of the top. Later authorities had a question of approach. </font></div>
<div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif">David-Three and Micha-Two said very simple - do both. Have a half-thick rise in the middle - the Chett will serve both - Rashi and his great-grandson can economize and use one Megila! If you think about it - why did Rabeinu keep it secret? why is there no big Tosafot about this? It must be that existentially - no generation gap - Rashi and Rabeinu Tam consider it a straight across kosher Chet-Top. </font></div>
<div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif">If so - asked - do we rule like Rabeinu Tam - answer Micha-Two and David-Three DO BOTH! </font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br>
</font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif">Micha-One and David-One and Sofrim angrily dispute the above! If it says DO LIKE RABEINU TAM - you must - DO LIKE RABEINU TAM! Higher - higher - higher - </font></div>
<div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif">at least almost as tall as the top of a Lamed. To show your RT-allegiance, make the hump into an angle and use the thin flourish thin lines for the Chatoteret! </font></div>
<div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif">There is a warning from the Maharik - he once saw a Chet and said that the Chatoteret was too thin and too far out of line to be kosher. [ agrees with Micha-Two and D-3?] </font></div>
<div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif">The Tzemach Tzedek Lubavitch had an amazing fight with a Sofer. Sofer-X [identified by the bump on top of his head] invalidated a Sefer Torah etc. - because - the Chet-tops were "a slash" straight across. The TzTzL angrily defended the Rashi Chet. The foundation is Micha-Two and David-Three. Existentially it is even more Chett than the RT version! It is a valid identity of OT CHETT, still Kosher - correcting it in Tefillin will not make a problem of Out-Of-Order writing. </font></div>
<div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif">If there were a Sofer-Union then, they would have picketed. </font></div><div class="gmail_default">
<font face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif">Clearly, Rabeinu Tam had no intention of insulting the Megilah of his grandfather! He preferred the extra feature, the hump, He never intended to go to the extremes of putting all old STM into Genizah and rewriting them! He did not make a Safeik! He added another Chumra. </font></div>
<div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif">In the Or Zarua, the short fat edition has two types of Chett showing these two interpretations. Reb Yom Tov Milhausen is the one who ruled to follow Rabeinu Tam. His ruling was never "dis-ambiguated". </font></div>
<div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div>
<div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif">Child Labor note: In order to be fit to judge special STaM letters - the child must be trained to read - on kosher Ktav Ashuri only! If he thinks Kaf Sofit is a long Dalett, he will not identify it properly. Similar with Reish and Chaf Sofit. </font></div>
<div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif">We have protected this child from the printed word, and he has only Siddur with Otiot STaM, so that he knows his Chaf Sofit. Otherwise the LOR must make his own call. </font></div>
<div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif">In practice: </font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="arial, sans-serif">What my LOR will rule - that will be the absolute truth. Mara DeAtra - master of specific location determines the Absolute Truth. Normalcy is restored, all is well with the world. </font></div>
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</span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:large"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">But writing this reply made me shift my position.</span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:large">
<br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">In our case there is no doubt about the objective truth. We know exactly</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">what the shape of the letter is, and how far down the leg goes. What we</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">are trying to determine is entirely existential -- what is the more</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">reasonable or common subjective assessment of the ink in question --</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">does it qualify as a yud or as a vav?</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">We could have made the issue objective: the shiur of a leg of a vav is</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">at least 1 or 1.5 kumulsim (think the width of the head's side-stroke)</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">beyond the bottom of the head, and any shape where the leg is less than</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">that shiur is a yud. But we didn't.</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">So I do have to back off my original claim: it's not an issue of relying</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
<span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">of halakhah-specific rules of eidus over determination of fact, it's not</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">even an issue of fact.</span><br style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">
</div><div><br></div>-- <br><div dir="ltr">David Wacholder<br>Cell: 917-742-7838<br>Email: <a href="mailto:dwacholder@gmail.com" target="_blank">dwacholder@gmail.com</a><br><a href="mailto:dwacholder@optonline.net" target="_blank">dwacholder@optonline.net</a></div>
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