Letter YOD - Kotz Elyon
Great food for thought and a must watch! In accordance with the Kabbalah of the Arizal only the Kotz Elyon of the letter YOD is to be inscribed, and NOT the KOTZ of Rabbenu Tam.
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 did confirm with Harav Dvir Zaafrani, a talmid muvhak of Harav Mordechai Eliyahu, that in fact he was makpid that the Yud should not have the lower oketz. He couldn't say that Harav Eliyahu considered a Yud with the lower oketz less mehudar.
ReplyDeleteThis is in contrast to Harav Ben Tzion Abba Shaul, Harav Ovadia and Harav Mazuz who say that the Yud should preferably have the lower oketz. See Yerios Shlomo vol. 3 ohs Yud.