The scribe is about to write. He has purchased fine parchment. It may be pre-ruled, or he may prefer to rule it himself. Each letter will "hang" from lines scratched into the parchment, except for the letter "lamed", the top of which goes over the lines. The body of the letters take up half the space between lines, with half needed for the heads of "lameds" to go up, and the feet of long letters (qof, final nun, tzade, peh, chof) to go down, without touching the other letters. In Ashkenazi script, most of the letters are "square"; they are as wide as they are tall. In Sepharadic script, the height of the letters is slightly more than their width. He must not only cut his pen in order to produce the right size letters, but there will often be a need to re-cut it as it wears down through writing. The re-cut must be exactly the same size, or the letters will be uneven, marring the beauty of the sacred text. He makes his declaration of intent, and begins writing. But which script? On what basis does he chose? This may be a question of tradition, but there are also ideological considerations.Let's take a look at some of these.
Beit Yosef (Classic Ashkenazi)
Rabbi Yosef Karo, the great 16th century author of the Shulchan Aruch (Code of Jewish Law), wrote an even greater work known as "Beit Yosef" (the House of Joseph) which is an amazing encyclopedia of rabbinic opinion spanning nearly a thousand years. He is often called "the Beit Yosef" after this magnum opus. In one section, he goes into great detail about the correct shapes and proportions of the letters of the sacred alphabet. He uses as a basis the works of several great Ashkenazi rabbis of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries. These were based partially on interpretations of statements in the Talmud,partially on Tradition, and partially on the Kabbalistic understanding of the German rabbis, who interpreted what combinations of letters go into other letters. For instance, a "shin" was seen as needing to be comprised of a zayin, a yod, and a vav. The "energies" of these letters make the energy of a shin. Although he was Sepharadic, and often seen as the ultimate Sepharadic authority, he nevertheless based his understanding of the proper forms of the letters solidly on Ashkenazic tradition. The classical Ashkenazi script has ironically been known ever since as "Beit Yosef". Many consider this to be the ONLY kosher script, as it is the only one so well documented. This was the view of such prominent rabbis as Chazon Ish, and Chafetz Chaim. However, when Rabbi Karo wrote his Shulchan Aruch, he essentially ignored his own analysis in Beit Yosef, and wrote "in the first instance one should write in accordance with the Tradition, but this is not essential". Ashkenazi rabbis consider this a "mystery". Sepharadic rabbis see it as a reversal of his stand in the intervening twenty years between the writing of the two works, and giving "equal rights" to different traditions. What are the other traditions? Where did they come from? Why do some prefer them? That will be may next installment.