I don't really have time to post to my blog now. I'm such a procrastinator. But I thought I'd tell these two stories.

Out in the middle of nowhere, in Yaffo

Yesterday (Monday) I traveled to Yaffo to a shofar factory, hoping they could fix/refurbish/clean mine so that it would sound better, and if not, buy a new, reasonably priced one. The shofar factory was out in the middle of nowhere in old Yaffo, a small yucky building in the middle of nowhere. When I finally got there, I saw a building with a picture of a man blowing a Shofar on the side, so I knew it was the right place. Since it was a kinda cool place and building, I took a picture. Immediately thereafter two guys ran up to me and yelled at me for taking a picture, saying it was against the rules. I asked why, and they just said, it's against the rules! Weird. They wouldn't let me close to the factory entrance, but rather showed me to another door, which was bolted closed, where I had to wait for them to open it and let me in...

Once inside, they bolted the door behind me. They were very careful to always unlock it to let someone in or out but lock it immediately thereafter. That was weird.

After telling me there was no way to clean or fix *my* shofarot, they pointed to a box of shofarot on the floor, and I started looking for one I liked. When I found one I thought might be okay, I asked how much. The guy said four-hundred dollars. I was shocked, and said, "Are you crazy? I'm not paying that much!" So they showed me some boxes of smaller ones (minimal length of a shofar to be kosher is one tefach -- 8 cm). I looked around until I found one that blew nicely, and asked how much that one was -- and it was below the amount I expected to pay. So I asked to see one that was one step up -- for comparison, and they pointed back to the first box. I said, "but you said those were 400 dollars!" The guy said he had been joking with me. I pulled another one out that looked nice and blew OK, and he gave me the price -- slightly more than the small one I'd found, but definitely within my price range. In the end, though, I decided that the cheaper one sounded better, so I decided to go with that.

The shofar factory

After the guy took my money, made change, and wrapped it in a bag, I asked him if they manufacture them right there. He said yes. I asked if they were manufacturing any right at that moment, he said yes. I asked if I could maybe take some pictures so I could show my children how it's done. He looked at me like I was crazy and said "Chas Vechalilah" (i.e., God forbid)! Surprised, I asked why not. He said they don't let anyone take pictures. I asked if they ever do tours -- and again he said "Chas Vechalilah" with great disdain. I guess they must be guarding some sort of family secret?

Anyway, kinda surprised, I rode back to Jerusalem with my new, nice shofar.

That's story #1. Here's story #2:

I need to bring a Sefer Torah with me to the kibbutz where I'm going for Rosh Hashanah. In the end, I was offered two -- one by the shul where I read Parashat Ki Tavo (not the one with the vowels, a decent sefer), and the other, by the yeshiva where I teach. I decided to take the yeshiva's, since, from memory, it's written better than the shul's. I went this morning to pick it up and decided that I'd roll it to the correct place, in Bereshit, right there, so that if I happened to come across a problem, I'd be able to take the other sefer with me instead.

I was just rolling, though. I wasn't looking for a problem. A sefer Torah, after all, has "chezkat kashrut" (you assume it's kosher unless it's proven otherwise -- it's unnecessary to check it for no reason). I merely intended to look over the part I'd be reading from on Rosh HaShanah.

But, it happened. As I was rolling from BaMidbar to Bereshit, a big problem jumped right out at me from the klaf. There was a crease in the klaf, and where the crease was, letters were erased. There was a dalet there that was mostly erased. Undeniably passul -- unfit to be read from.

At first, the guy who offered it to me, suggested I take it anyway as is, and they'll fix it some time next week. I told him, though, that I couldn't read from it like that, and that I'd take the shul's sefer instead. Then, to cover my tuchus, I said, let's show it to the Rosh Yeshiva. I knew he'd concur with me, but that'd be a good thing -- that way the yeshiva wouldn't look at me as some chanyak making problems for them. He, of course, agreed with me that it needed fixing and couldn't be used like that.

The first rabbi suggested that I fix it with a Pilot felt pen. Once, I *was* advised to use a Pilot pen to fix a sefer Torah, when it was a desperate need -- there is an opinion that the ink doesn't have to be made especially for a Sefer Torah, but any black ink from a synthetic or vegetable source is OK (citation needed). However, just to make sure, I called up a friend of mine, who asked a posek, who said that although some permit it, it's better not to (citation needed). My friend's sofer friend offered to fix it for me tonight, if I brought it to him, but I thought that would be too much trouble on the night before my trip. So I said I'd just take the shul's sefer, and some time next week I'd work on fixing this one. The yeshiva people agreed to that.

My Sefer-Torah fixing kit. Note the plastic fake quill tip beside the uncarved feather. It slips over the end of the feather and writes really well.

Then I called up the rabbi of the shul to ask when he'd be there, so I could get his Sefer Torah from him. I'd have to wait two hours for him to show up. Since I'd have to wait around anyway, I decided to walk over to "Kesset" in Me'ah She'arim and buy the necessary equipment to just fix the yeshiva's Sefer Torah, myself. I found the store, somewhere in the kishkes of Me'ah She'arim, bought the coolest "slip-on" plastic quill end (it's like a sofer's version of press-on nails),* and some ink, and brought that back to the yeshiva.

Instead of fixing it immediately, I decided to wait an hour so that the students could watch and learn something. The rabbi who was lending me the S"T took some nice photos -- I asked him to email me copies, but he hasn't yet. (I'll post 'em when I get 'em.) When it dried, I rolled to Bereshit, read through the R"H reading, fixed a couple of things that were borderline problematic, packed it up, and brought it home.

That rabbi said he'd like to hire me to give some hands on presentations about safrut, which will be nice. Also, he thinks he'll pay me to go through the S"T with the vowels and fix it. Yay! Money!

* Normal sofrim carve their own quills out of feathers, but to do so takes lots of practice. Halakhically, it doesn't matter what you use to write with anyway, so plastic is just fine. You could just use the plastic tip thing without a feather, but it would be kinda harder to hold. Instead of a feather, it could be slipped onto the end of a pen or pencil just as well. The feather also looks more impressive, though.