Shin - heads touching
How about the Bais of Uleovdo?
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shin in "Alter Rebbe" script
Both the Shulchan Aruch Harav and the Mishnah Brurah use similar terminology when describing the importance of the shin being "pointy" on the bottom and all three branches of the letter shin meeting at a point or "chad" at the bottom of the letter. There is a strong foundation in Halacha for this and for the bottom of the shin to be flat like a moshav (base) is considered questionable (Pri Megadim) and definitely not Kosher Lechatchillah. It is worse if the moshav is very wide, but it is still questionable if it is lechatchillah if there is a thick noticeable base rather than a chad. Even for Sephardim, who lechatchillah make an angular base, it is still important that the base is indeed on a (significant) angle. If the base is flat, even if all three branches of the shin come out of the base connected , as in the top picture, it is problematic. It is worse in the bottom picture below where the right head/ branch comes out of the right part of the base and the m
Not a "khaf"
This gave me a "Safrut smile"... OK, I realise that this is not Ktav STaM, however it is interesting what happens when graphic/font Hebrew becomes too stylised. Case-in-point, a colleague and I were visiting the mayor's office in the Gaza Belt region of Shaar HaNegev (adjoining Sderot). He is new to reading Hebrew and pronounced the welcome sign as " brooning " or " broobing " (instead of the intended " brookhim ". I replied that he was more correct than the graphic designer, as the letter meant to be a " khaf " was closer to a halakhic "Nun" or "Bet", and had this been Ktav STaM, the letter would likely be considered pasul as a "Khaf".
kavod harav but why?
ReplyDeleteisn't this the classic textbook case brought in the mishnat sofrim that it's an inyan only of mukaf gvil and not chok tochot because the tzurah is nikkar? why can't this be fixed?
There are opinions (see Mishnat Hasofer 9:46) that consider 2 letters stuck the whole ovey hagagos, as forbidden to scrape because of chok tochos. Here 2 heads of the shin are the same, since the majority of their heads are stuck.
ReplyDeleteI admit that in a very needed situation [consult a Rabbi] one can be meikal.
as long as only the minority of their heads are stuck together, there is no problem of chok tochos?
ReplyDeleteYes. That is the classical negiya between 2 letters mentioned in poskim that can be scraped.
DeleteIf your question was in regard to the negiya between the heads of the shin, this is up to the whole issue of negiyas oketz smol of yud ha'alef to the guf.