knife in shul
What is the Din re: bringing in a knife/blade into the Beis Midrash / Shul in order to fix a Sefer Torah (or even as a Sofrus "show and tell" to students)?
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
Used לצורך מצוה especially לצורך רבים.
ReplyDeleteI don't see any problem with this.
The Gemara in שבת discusses being מצניע לצורך מילה בשבת. What is the הוה אמינה that you shouldn’t bring it into shul? Is there a makor?
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DeleteBalak 25:7
DeleteThe Gemara (Sanhedrin 82a) cites the verse regarding Pinchas’ courageous act and explains that it serves as a source to prohibit entering into a bais medrash while carrying a weapon.
The Yad Rama explains that the Gemara understood the aforementioned verse to be stating the following, “he arose” from the bais medrash and only then “took a spear”. As long as he was in the bais medrash he did not have any weapon readily available."
There is wide discussion on this including the notion that a knife cuts a life short while a Beis kneses/Beis midrash extends life.
As I understand it, the shulchan aruch only prohibits a large knife. So a blade to fix a Torah wouldn't seem to be an issue.
I understand re fixing a Seder Torah to be permitted. But what about simply for giving over a shiur with a "show and tell" aspect?
I assumed the problem was bringing in a weapon, not any knife per se. A gun, fr example would certainly problematic, but I cannot imagine that a person with a heter to eat in a shul/beis medrash, for example if there was was an explicit or implicit tnai to use the shul for other purposes, would not be allowed to bring in a knife to cut the challa for shalosh seudos, cake for a siyyum, etc. If so, the same would apply here (unless you make mechikos with a sword ;) ).
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