There are 2 different scripts.
ktav ivri and ktav ashuri. The latter - which we use today - is holier.
They are discussed in gemara. Here is a post on it that I posted to SCJM. post 6 in thread.
http://groups.google.com/group/soc.culture.jewish.moderated/browse_frm/thread/57817608d33c4ce5/061b0fe5f48b28a3?hl=en=b0fe5f48b28a3note- rabbi micha berger kindly posted it to the mail-jewish list too.
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I was fortunate to receive a book called "The Commentator's Gift of
Torah" by Rabbi Yitzchak Sender (a rosh yeshiva). It was given to me
as a barmitzva gift by the Gaon Dayan M Fisher Z"L .
In Chapter 2, there is a discussion "How was the Torah written" that
discusses the 3 opinions.
the 3 positions are
1 The Torah was originally in hebrew and then ezra changed it to
assyrian script
2 The Torah was originally in assyrian script then it was changed to
hebrew script then ezra changed it back to assyrian
3 The Torah was always in assyrian.
position 1 is held by Mar Ukva and Rabbi Yosi
position 2 is held by Rabbi Yehuda the prince
position 3 is held by Rabbi Elazar of modin
position 1 appears to raise many objections.
a)We are told that the Torah (tablets?) that Moshe received contained
crownlets. Only assyrian contains crownlets.
b)We are told that Mem and Samech are hollow and adhered to the
tablets. This only applies to assyrian (furthermore, Looking at
http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/4_chart.html , none of the letters in
ancient hebrew are hollowed out.)
c)How could Ezra - the prophet - have had the authority to change the
writing of the Torah to Assyrian. Since the letters of the Torah are
not to be tampered with, not by 'any other prophet'.
The book then mentions the Radvaz's approach discusses the tablets and
answers all the objections raised against position 1. He says that all
agree that the first set of tablets were written in assyrian. He says
that the rabbis at position 1 hold that the second set of tablets were
written in hebrew. (So I guess the rabbis at position 1 were only
referring to the writen torah when they said the torah was originally
in krav ivri script)
The book goes on to explain that this resolves those objections a b and
c, of position 1.
objection a , is resolved because the Torah moshe originally
received was written in Ashuri
(I guess the books reasoning is that the first set of tablets were in
ashuri, and perhaps part of the written torah was received in ashuri. I
can't see the reasoning there, lack of information regarding the
receiving of the written torah).
objection b, is resolved , because - it seems to me from this book -
that chazal say that the miracle of samach and mem adhering only
applied to the first tablets. (I guess a tradition that the second
tablets were in ktav ivri, is strongly supported here. Though if the
reason for this miracle not occurring for the second tablets is that
the second tablets was ktav ivri, then I guess it'd call into question
position 3 )
objection c, is resolved beucase Ezra was only changing it back to
what it was originally. (it seems that the book may be implying taht
the whoel written torah was in assyrian)
That's the outline. The book - though informative, doesn't seem to
touch on this issue of whether it's talking about the written torah or
the tablets. Obviously ezra wasn't rewriting tablets, yet the Radvaz is
talking about tablets, as if that was what all teh positions were based
on. A relatied issue would be when the written torah was received in
relation to when the tablets were received. All I know regarding is
Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan writes in Handbook Of Jewish Thought Vol 1, that
the written torah was received in the 1st and 40th year of wondering
the wilderness - 38 year gap where no Torah was received..
I haven't given this as much thought as I should. And I haven't
researched this properly myself by even picking up a Gemara and looking
at te sources myself. But that's my best attempt for now! No doubt the
issue is of interest to many members of the group, and I hope it helps
fellow googlers, should they chose to look into the issue.
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Topic: Sephardi Sefer Torah (Read 13221 times)