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Carrying
on an Ancient Craft: Rabbi Shmuel Miller, Scribe
By Susan Auerbach
The stark, book-lined office of Rabbi Shmuel Miller looks more like a scholar’s study that an artisan’s workshop. It is here that the Algerian native plies the ancient profession of the sofer setam, or ritual scribe. One of several scribes in the Los Angeles area, Miller came to Fairfax from Israel six years ago, and now lives on the edge of the neighborhood in Pico-Robertson. It wasn’t until he came to L.A.’s thriving Jewish community that he drew on his Israeli rabbinical training and apprenticeship with scribes in New York and Tunisia to set himself up as a full-time scribe. "The work of the scribe is not an art in the modern sense," says Miller, who also holds a degree in anthropology from a French university. He considers it a craft in which creativity is bound by rules, much like the work of religious icon painters. No ordinary craft, this work proceeds according to codified laws and involves careful spiritual preparation. It requires both religious knowledge and calligraphic skill, as Miller strives for complete uniformity in the shaping and spacing of letters. In general, a good sofer is careful to go to the mikveh (ritual bath) everyday," says Miller. He cannot work if he is tired or preoccupied, as the writing takes so much concentration. "Before making the first stroke on a Sefer Torah (scroll of law, the most holy of Jewish books)," he explains, "you say to yourself the Kiddushath Sefer Torah, to recognize the special intention and sanctity of the Sefer Torah." Only after such a prayer is it proper to begin. Miller’s materials are essentially those of his colleagues from thousands of years ago. He makes his own ink out of the blackened ashes of olivewood, cooked together with water, gum for consistency and (a modern improvement) chemicals such as a fixative. He writes with a feather quill or more rarely with a piece of bamboo, which he sharpens at an angle for a flat edge. He makes an annual trip to Israel to buy his parchment in bulk, each piece still made from the skin of a kosher animal. "The soferim today are much better than they were 60 years ago," according to Miller, since a return to a traditional way of making a highly durable parchment. Miller has a Torah dating back nearly 400 years, from the time of the expulsion of Jews from Spain, which is in fine condition due to excellent materials. After the parchment is scored with straight lines, the scribe applies letters in a square ketav ashuri script, which resembles printed Hebrew. Decorative crowns are permitted on certain letters. But in general the trend over the centuries has been toward a standardized writing style with increasingly less embellishment. Much of the scribe’s work has to do with checking and repairing faded or otherwise damaged letters on old Torah scrolls. This is where boys just learning their aleph bes (Hebrew alphabet) can be of help to the learned artisan. "There are rules for Hebrew calligraphy that say a child should be able to recognize without any hesitation the letters and the words," he explains. "So in certain cases if you have a problem (determining if a letter has been written correctly), you call on a child." Every document a scribe writes must be unequivocally understood. Hence the importance of an extremely consistent, clear calligraphic style. While it is acceptable to fix or replace unclear letters on a Torah, rules are stricter for the shorter texts inserted in the mezuzah (a parchment containing the Sh’ma which is placed on the doorposts) and tefillin (men’s phylacteries wound around the arm and head during prayer). Even one bad letter can cause me to reject a whole mezuzah," says Miller. The fourth type of document written by Miller, the get or Jewish bill of divorce, is written on regular paper and is technically less difficult, he notes, but calls for special care to avoid misunderstandings. The start of the Jewish New Year 5749 on Sept 12, 1988 will be the beginning of an awesome task for Miller. He will begin inscribing an entire Sefer Torah scroll, which he believes will be the first such document ever written from start to finish in Los Angeles. The project will take about a year of full-time work. This is in contrast to the three or four hours needed to write a mezuzah, or nine to ten hours for tefillin. Like many traditional craftsmen, Miller feels that people often do not appreciate how much meticulous care goes into one document. But the profession has definite advantages for an observant Jew like Miller, allowing for the integration of work, prayer, study and home life. You are able to have work which is related to Torah, and teach people, while being financially independent," he says. As Miller has found in Los Angeles, there is still demand for the scribe’s services-even in a modern literate society. Religious leaders from the Reform to the ultra-Orthodox consult Miller and other scribes on preserving or correcting their aging Torah scrolls. Observant Jews consider it a mitzvah (commandment) to write, have written for them, or even correct one letter in a Sefer Torah. So long as such ritual objects, tradition and beliefs are valued in a community, the scribe will continue to serve an essential function in places like Fairfax. |
