JOFA conference – on writing. Part 1
Fun times at JOFA yesterday. That’s the intermittently-annual conference of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance, for those not au fait with Modern Orthodox slang. I admit I was rather surprised when...
View ArticleJOFA conference – on writing. Part 2
Session blurb: If one writes a sefer Torah, say the Sages, it is as if he had himself received it on Mount Sinai. How can the simple act of writing take someone to such heights? By transcribing small...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Hachnasat sefer Torah
I finished writing the sefer Torah for Dorshei Emet. You might have worked this out, from the lack of Torah-writing posts of late, but I didn’t actually get round to making a post about it yet. I...
View ArticleLa vie soferet – Rodeph Sholom
A very Rodeph-Sholom couple of weeks. Rodeph Sholom, for those not intimately familiar with Manhattan’s Upper West Side Jewish Scene, is a Reform synagogue of epic proportions, with after-school...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Making Your Own Girl-Shaped Tallit Katan
Girl-shaped tallit katanI couldn’t get to Limmud this year because of the snow closing all the airports. This is one of the sessions I would have given. Wearing tzitzit under your clothes isn’t just...
View ArticleClik here to view.
your student doesn’t finish her first sefer Torah every day
My beloved student Julie has been writing a Torah in San Francisco at the Contemporary Jewish Museum for the past year, and once she’d finished writing (yay) it came time to sew it together and have a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Notes on checking mezuzot
I was going to give a class on checking your own mezuzah, but it got prevented by weather. Today I found the notes I’d made for it, so I’m typing them up. But I’m not putting in the pictures here...
View Articlestudent love
I love RG. RG has been coming to Apprentice with a Sofer on Tuesday nights. She doesn’t count herself as valid to work on a sefer Torah (because she holds that men and women have different halakhic...
View Articleon planning rituals
I write Torah scrolls for congregations, and part of my job is working closely with the congregation to make appropriate programming. Such as, for instance, an opening ritual. A good ritual starts by...
View Article