PRINTED?
How about the Bais of Uleovdo?
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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".
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
I woulod check for any anomalies in the writing, and see if they are also present in the other mezzuzot. That would prove that it is printed. I worked for many years as a magiah in Israel. Some Bnai Brak sofrim regularly wrote just below the sirtut. They claimed that they were acting on a psak of Rav Wosner z"l. True, Rav Wosner said this was kosher, but I know of no psak that it shoulkd be done l'chatchilah.
ReplyDeletethe top of the lines are very straight and not the bottom. If he's so good that he got the top perfect he should have done the same on the bottom.
ReplyDeleteRav Vozner and Rav Ovadia were machshir (bedieved[Rav Vozner]) if written below the sirtut as long as the ksav is straight, meaning that the sirtut was used to maintain straight lines.
ReplyDeleteHowever, Rav Elyashiv and others pasel ksav written below the sirtut. Rav Elyashiv held even 3 letters below is pasul and irreparable. Some poskim permitted fixing by adding ink to the heads to reach the sirtut.
Hence, the sofer who yelled as if there was no problem is wrong. At best there's room to be machshir bedieved and if the mezuzahs belong to a shomer mitzvos should be replaced.
With regards to printing, below the sirtut is one chashash but is hardly any proof on its own.