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bread and torah
Dec. 10th, 2013 11:00 pmThis past Shabbat we had as visitors the two rabbis from Bread and Torah. He's a baker; she's a soferet (scribe) who is currently writing her first sefer torah (torah scroll). They led a variety of interesting activities -- challah-baking Friday afternoon, a couple text-study sessions, and some parchment-making and more baking Saturday night.
Question: How many deer do you think go into a torah scroll? (Picture on the linked page.) I'll come back to this at the end of this entry.
Shabbat afternoon, after services and lunch and a study session, I was talking with Rabbi Motzkin about parchment-making. She makes her own parchment, starting from deer skins, because most suppliers of kosher parchment are Orthodox and hold that women can't write torah scrolls, and she won't begin a holy project like that by misleading a seller. I said I've taken a couple informal classes on parchment-making but never started as far back as the fresh deer skin. (The workshop she would be leading that night involved soaking, scraping, and stretching a piece that had already had significant work done on it -- same as what I've experienced.) We got to talking; I said I'm not a very good calligrapher and I came at this through illumination (painting). She asked in what context and I said there was this group that studies the middle ages and renaissance.
She paused, and then asked if the person I'd learned about parchment from was Aengus MacBain.
Why yes, I said. Before I could ask the obvious question, she said that she'd found him online and they'd corresponded quite a bit; she considers him one of her teachers but hasn't met him. (I said "he lives nearby, if you want to try to rectify that on this trip", but their schedule was pretty full.)
Small world -- she's never been in the SCA and only knows about it through a parchment-maker she found online, and I'm not a soferet but know a little about it through the SCA. :-)
So back to the number of deer in a torah scroll. My estimate was way off, even though I read from these scrolls fairly regularly so should have an idea of the number of seams. I'd been thinking probably 25 or 30. Her answer: 60 to 80.
Question: How many deer do you think go into a torah scroll? (Picture on the linked page.) I'll come back to this at the end of this entry.
Shabbat afternoon, after services and lunch and a study session, I was talking with Rabbi Motzkin about parchment-making. She makes her own parchment, starting from deer skins, because most suppliers of kosher parchment are Orthodox and hold that women can't write torah scrolls, and she won't begin a holy project like that by misleading a seller. I said I've taken a couple informal classes on parchment-making but never started as far back as the fresh deer skin. (The workshop she would be leading that night involved soaking, scraping, and stretching a piece that had already had significant work done on it -- same as what I've experienced.) We got to talking; I said I'm not a very good calligrapher and I came at this through illumination (painting). She asked in what context and I said there was this group that studies the middle ages and renaissance.
She paused, and then asked if the person I'd learned about parchment from was Aengus MacBain.
Why yes, I said. Before I could ask the obvious question, she said that she'd found him online and they'd corresponded quite a bit; she considers him one of her teachers but hasn't met him. (I said "he lives nearby, if you want to try to rectify that on this trip", but their schedule was pretty full.)
Small world -- she's never been in the SCA and only knows about it through a parchment-maker she found online, and I'm not a soferet but know a little about it through the SCA. :-)
So back to the number of deer in a torah scroll. My estimate was way off, even though I read from these scrolls fairly regularly so should have an idea of the number of seams. I'd been thinking probably 25 or 30. Her answer: 60 to 80.