Auction 12
Lot 096:
Important Judaica Sefer Torah With much tagging of letters and strange letters and bending, including rare appearances of these letters. Given in original atzei hayyim. This book’s lettering is in a very ancient style, including rare cursive forms. Peys are crooked (internally crooked even) and the hets are ‘pushed’ outwards, special lamed decorations, the nun of zechor is backwards, and additional odd letters. The writing is according to the ancient Ashkenaz tradition, including the open and closed parshiyot, large and small letters, letters with vowelling. It follows the style described specifically in the ancient book “Sefer Ta’agi”, a tradition mentioned by Rambam in his book Hilchot Sefer Torah, chapter 7, halacha 8, saying “one should take care with the large letters and the small letters and the vowelled letters and the strange letters, such as the pey and the crooked letters, as the sofrim each copied one another. One should take care that one letter that has one tag above it and another has seven above it…” as in this Sefer, like with the word “v’He’ezniya” and in additional places. This form of writing disappeared progressively over the generations, since it was not uniform across various stages of this mesorah and since the Rambam states that a torah is not pasul because of a lack of tagging and strange lettering. Thestyle is still somewhat preserved in Ashkenazi sifrei torah from later periods. Everything written here is paged upon the detailed article (page 19) by a researcher who deals with the tagging and strange lettering, with explanation of the various changes. According to research findings and examination—some of the appearances here are unknown in other texts. There are those who estimate that the Torah was written in Germany, while others claim Poland, but it is unclear. 52 lines per column. Height of the parchment: 35cm. Condition: in relation to the years it is in good condition, the writing has held well on the parchment throughout, but some of the places have smudging on brown letters. Original, uniform handwriting. Not sold as kosher.
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