Lo B’Shamayim Hi
Many, many mazal tovs to soferet Jen Taylor Friedman for completing writing* a Sefer Torah!!
Among other things, this makes her the first woman in known history to have scribed a Sefer Torah. it’s hard to know, because sofrim can’t sign their Torahs, so it’s quite possible that other women, elsewhere in history, have indeed written Sifrei Torah–but we just don’t know. Which makes Jen the first that we know about, and that’s pretty dang cool.
(The work was for this shul in St. Louis.)
She addresses a bunch of the halakhic issues involved in writing Sifrei Torah here.
Kol hakavod, Jen!
*Except for twelve words she’s saving to write at her siyum this weekend!
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çæ÷é çæ÷é åðúçæ÷!!!
—BZ · September 6th, 2007 at 11:39 am
Wow congrats! Hatslachah rabah!
—chillul Who? · September 6th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
Very interesting! Here is my question for her…where is your source for the (as you state it) fact, that the spelling tradition and others have been lost to the point where torahs today are imitations?
And if they are, why do we bother sofering (can that be a verb?) them at all. And why do we fast? SHouldnt we just photocopy them? it woudl make your job a lot easier!
—fran · September 6th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
Fran, the source for us not having the exact spellings any more is the Gemara, Kiddushin 30a. See also e.g. the Kol bo, siman 20, s.v.â€Ve-zot ha-teshuvah.â€
To your second paragraph, we bother partly because of the chance that what we have is in fact the right version (see e.g. R’ Feinstein’s response to the Shaagat Aryeh siman 35-6), and partly because sifrei Torah are a powerful focus and symbol, and to discard them would be an equally powerful message, but a negative one – we usually express this concept as “so that Torah not be lost from Israel.”
—Jen · September 6th, 2007 at 2:06 pm
Mazel tov!
—Hineini · September 6th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
yasher koach!
—sarah m · September 6th, 2007 at 6:47 pm
in that case….MAZEL TOV!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
—fran · September 6th, 2007 at 6:48 pm
I love St. Louis.
Congratulations!
Is this the synagogue that Rabbi Shook is at?
—ariela · September 9th, 2007 at 8:30 am
[...] Coolest Random Thing: Jen Taylor Friedman, who we were already in love with from her Tefillin Barbie, scribing the first Torah known to be written by a woman [...]
—Jewschool » Blog Archive » Jewschools Picks for Best of 2007 · January 1st, 2008 at 11:57 pm
[...] we reported a few months ago, Jen Taylor Friedman recently became the first known woman to write a sefer Torah. [...]
—Jewschool » Blog Archive » DIY Torah · January 4th, 2008 at 6:50 am