Sofrutacular
Jen Taylor Friedman, a New York-based soferet, has decided to share her translations of Keset Ha-Sofer (an important text on sofrut) and the most relevant section of the Shulchan Aruch with the internet universe. She even put the Mishnah Berurah in funky Javascript footnotes. Klaf it up, yo.
At least she admits that woman cannot be sofrim, see http://www.geniza.net/ritual/women.shtml and http://www.geniza.net/ritual/keset/chapter1.shtml there is female sofer blogger out there who claims that it is halachikly acceptable; such a position is unacceptable.
BS”D
Hi, Danya, & greetings Reb Chaim –
I would be that certified soferet female blogger you’re referring to. As a rabbi, I’m sure you are aware of the minority position brought by the Be’er Heytav & the Drisha, claiming that the view held by the Tur, in the name of the Rosh & the Rif, is that a woman-written Sefer Torah is kasher. The majority opinion does dispute this, which is important to note, however to ignore the existence of the minority opinion is revisionist Judaism, IMHO.
Are you claiming that Jen Taylor-Friedman deems her work to be passul due to her gender? If so, why would she be writing Mezuzot & Sifrei Torah like me?
As for translations, much as I’ve written on my blog & believe that sofrut ought to be more accessible to all Jews, I prefer to be cautious, too. I think a minimum level of Hebrew comprehension should be required for someone to learn sofrut, & Halakhah supports this.
Thanks for listening to my rant 🙂
Avielah Barclay
Well, not everyone is fluent in rabbinic Hebrew. Avielah, you’re aware that the Keset is full of tricky acronyms and the Lishkat is full of pilpul. You’re not really saying you don’t ever refer to notes in English, are you?
Ideally of course all soferim would spend time in yeshivah, but in the real world, that’s not happening. There are people out there doing writing, doing repairs, who have no knowledge of the halakha because they don’t know how to read rabbinic texts. They know Biblical Hebrew, as per requirement (at least, most of them do), but reading a halakha sefer is beyond them. That is to say, the problem is already there. An English translation can at least help these people do what they’re already doing properly. It already has, actually. In the ideal world we wouldn’t need it, but right here and now ain’t nothing going to stop people doing what they’re doing, and if English helps them do it in a kosher way, so be it. Lefi aniut dati.
And once again, I think I probably put that more strongly than I needed to. I don’t see a way to delete or edit the above, though, so I shall just have to say: Avielah, that wasn’t meant to be hurtful to you. I hope you didn’t read it so; it wasn’t intended that way.