HUMILITY AS YOGA

בס"ד


The air conditioning is on today, B"H.

Thank G@d, I'm learning so much by retracing the letters of the sofer who wrote this Sefer Torah! By filling in where his old otiyot have broken or worn away, my hand learns his strokes & angles. There is a poetic, delicate nature to his curves & shapes, his negative space. His Gevurah & Chesed. Like the way he so beautifully placed the head of the Lamed in "kol" between the feet of Peh & Quf in "paqad" (Bemidbar/Numbers 3:39). I like to "look through" it & capture new visions.

Although all his letters are recognisable, I know that my sofer wouldn't accept some of them. He taught me to be very machmir (strict) in how I form my letters, so that they look just like the examples of Ashkenazi script in the Qeset HaSofer (the laws of scrolls for Ashkenazim which was codified by Rav Shlomo Gansfried of Hungary). These letters are K'tav Beit Yosef, but have some K'tav Ari aesthetics evident. My sofer would only accept a script which was of a single type, not mixed styles. Also, this sofer's taggin are very tall. I think they're pretty, like palm fronds waving in the breeze. But my sofer would say that the middle tag is not always higher that the two on either side, that they complicate the layout with descending strokes from the line above because of their height & worst of all, the Yuds could be mistaken for small Lameds with such high strokes, so they would all be pasul.

Now don't get me wrong, I am in no way criticizing this sofer's work. Judging by his spacing & other writing skills, he was more experienced when he wrote this Sefer than I am currently. I'm just making observations about something I am so curious about & love so much.

& I am so far away from my mentor (sigh)...

Janine, one of our fabulous hosts, said that later in the week there would be a lot more going on at the synagogue, what with Shabbes coming & all, & that there would probably be quite a few people sneaking into the sanctuary so they can take a peek at my work. So far only 2 people have come & they were so afraid to disturb me that they stayed for about a nano-second before excusing themselves. It's not that I mind either way, I mean sure, I enjoy a quiet workspace, but c'mon - sofrut is SO COOL! You'd think the Yidden would be lining up to learn about it!

Something else happened today that really surprised me: Janine told me that I was "so humble." I smiled, but said nothing as I was a bit stunned, to tell you the truth. My first thought was, "well, she's obviously never read my blog!"
I am still wondering what it is she sees in me that inspired her to say that. I have never considerd myself humble & have often recognised, during my adult life, that this is a middah (character trait) which I needed - still need - to improve.

May The Holy One guide me to true humility...