Letters Sofer Workshop Topic B: The Torah Scroll

Topic B: The Torah Scroll Welcome to the Sofer Workshop. Letters There are twenty two letters of the Hebrew alphabet, with five having additional final forms when they appear at the end of a word. (There are no capital letters in Hebrew). The Torah is written without vowels. (Vowels were added later by the Masoretes.) There are many traditions about the sanctity and importance of the Hebrew letters. God is said to have created the world with the letters of the Alphabet. The Rabbis even taught that the letters' names, shape and order had great meaning and significance. The early Hebrew script (Paleo-Hebrew) resembled the Phoenician alphabet. Examples can be found on coins and clay fragments (ostraca). It was replaced by the Aramaic alphabet during the Babylonian exile by Ezra. Today, the Torah is still written in this alphabet, called K'tav Ashuri (or K'tav Meruba, square Hebrew script). Seven letters have special crownlets, called Tagin (Tag, sing.) in Aramaic. These letters can be remembered using the mnemonic, Shatnez-gatz. No one knows for sure the significance of these markings, but it could be that they help to distinguish between similar looking letters. In the New Testament, they are referred to as 'tittles' as in the phrase, "not a jot (ie the letter yod- the smallest letter) or (even) a tittle will be .... "() meaning that even the littlest part of Torah was not meant to be abrogated. Unusual letters There are a number of irregularities in the lettering of the Torah text that the Sofer must faithfully reproduce. Examples include enlarged letters, small letters, dotted, inverted, and broken letters. Often midrashim creatively explain the significance of these textual anomalies, but no one knows for sure their origins. Click on a button to learn more about each area. Sofer Rules Layout Letters Materials BACK