Torah Scribe, Jaffa

Micha Bar-Am

1971

Gelatin silver print (printed 1981)

Minneapolis Institute of Art

A man with a beard and a kippah writes with a quill pen on a scroll laid out on a wooden table. Two scrolls are visible, one in the foreground and one behind the man. In Jewish tradition, it is a hard-earned place of honor to be eligible to transcribe the words of the Torah. Only a scribe, or <I>sofer</I> (סופר), is permitted to officially write ceremonial religious texts, such as Torah scrolls, <I>tefillin</I>, and <I>mezuzot</I>. At its center, a <I>sofer</I> acts as a copyist, carefully transcribing each character of the Torah while saying each character aloud before it is written. These texts, typically written on parchment, have literally thousands of laws for their proper transcription, with each ritual object requiring a different set of specifications so as to ensure no part of the Torah