On Wednesday, June 17th, during our last week in Israel, one of the many things we squeezed in, was meeting Soferet Chana Keblansky.
Chana is the only female soferet in Israel. She is a Masorti (Conservative) Rabbi, and she wrote the tefilin that Alexandra and I wear. It is so cool to be able to say that I’ve met the person who wrote my tefilin!
Here are some facts about Torahs that Chana taught us:
– There are 62 pieces of parchment in a Torah
– A Torah is healthy for 200 years because it is written in Leather
– Every month or two you have to switch the quill you are using, and you have to sharpen it regularly
– It is physically impossible to erase the writing in a Torah. We even tried
– It takes one year to write a Torah, working every day
– It takes one day to write a mezuzah klaf
– There is a special earaser to use for when you mess up
– Some things can’t be erased, like God’s name
– You can only widen some letters (you want to widen letters to fill each line)
– There is a bracha that you have to say for every time you write a name of God
– The first mitzvah in the Torah is to have kids, and the last is to write a Torah. It goes from physical to spiritual
It was really nice to meet her, and she showed us how to write a few things. This was one of the last things we did in Israel, and I’m glad we managed to do so before we had to leave.
We saw some of the mezuzah klafs that she has written, and the script was minuscule. It was very impressive.
– Naomi
Chana showing us how she writes
Us and Chana
Alexandra and I practicing writing in Hebrew with quills