VISCERA OF A SEFER

B"H


Sunday, August 24th

"Modah ani lefanekha..."
I am *so* lucky.
Barukh HaShem.
I got on with my day: laundry, the office place "Express", food, connected with my sofer & then my Israeli girlfriend Galit, sofrut homework...
I want to say something about my adventures so far in sofrut: wow. It is both just as I imagined, this final learning stage, & at the same time a surprise. I think both are good :)
For one thing, the quill cutting isn't as complicated as I thought it would be. I mean, I've read about it & seen pictures of the process & ordered a few professionally made ones in the past to *really* see how they're done properly. But never even attempted to carve one myself, even tho' I love carving (wood, metal). The quills are turkey - the ones I bought in Me'ah She'arim - & goose - the ones that Fred Nudel brought me from the shochet (ritual butcher) in Montréal - & they have different characteristics. The goose are much thinner that the turkey - less than half as thick - so carving them is a more delicate matter, particularly in awling out all the smelly interior chamber-like material of the shaft after they've soaked. The exacto-blade (the inconvenient Israeli version I bought here, anyway) is serving me very well, but I definitely need to find some razor blades.
The ink is really something, the way it behaves on the klaf. With regular drawing ink & a metal nib on paper, I can just drag the pigment to wherever I want it in one stroke & it's there. & it stays. This Nahari d'yo has to be gently coaxed along. It must be enticed to spread itself over the klaf & then convinced to remain there. This requires much more drawing out & many more strokes. Once in position, it stays put on top of the klaf, drying expectantly.
The klaf I'm currently doing my homework on - it's velvety prepared surface is more of a battle for sharp letter edges than the other Torah klaf I've worked on before. Beautiful to look at & feel, but quite a challenge to write on. It's ok - I'll get the hang of it (G@d willing).
I went out to Café Hillel with Galit & had a qafeh barad - which was very excellent indeed.
We later met our friend Inbal at the Kotel. Both Inbal & Galit had lived & taught in Vancouver last year, so they had a grocery bag full of notes their elementary students had written to be placed in the cracks of the Wall. What a gevalt! It was so sweet to see these two placing hundreds of children's requests for G@d between the stones.