Quickest Mezuzah Remover Around!

Normally when I do a house call, I take down three or four mezuzos, check them and put them back. Sometimes it is not convenient for the customer to have me do the checking on site, so I take all the mezuzos down, and bring them to my office to check. That’s what I did today. When the customer saw how quickly I was able to take down all of the mezuzos in his house and keep track of what goes where, he said to me, “I would like to take a video of you taking down mezuzos to show people what they could accomplish by working efficiently.

It’s true, I take down mezuzos fast, and I keep track of where they go.

Raish With Drop Of Ink

The raish in artzachem has a smudge. It still looks more or less like a raish, and two of my children (18 years old and 14 years old, both too old for a shailos tinuk) who looked at it didn’t have any doubt that it was a raish. Sometimes the opinion of a child is enough to machshir (validate) a letter. The problem in this case is that in the Keses HaSofer chapter 5, under the halachos of the letter hey it says not to make a hey round on the top right side like a reish. In addition, if a drop of ink falls into a dalit, if it is very small, and a child reads it correctly, only under some circumstances will it be kosher. Here we have a hybrid question, it is not a dalit, but a raish, and it is not a small drop of ink, but a fairly large one, and if you see it in person, you can see that some of the smudge is dark. According to the Rosh, even the smallest drop of ink would be enough to make a kosher hey.This means that if you need a reish, and it has a drop of ink in it, you are in trouble. This is why I didn’t listen to my children, and instead should it to Rav Wosner, who said he could not be machshir (approve) it.

Medical Examination Rooms and Mezuzos

An OBGYN just opened a new office and asked me to take care of the mezuzos. He told me he needed ten mezuzos. I asked him if he was including the exam rooms and he replied that he was. Since people disrobe in an exam room, I told him that they don’t need mezuzos. Just to be certain, I confirmed this with Reb Wosner.

Can Anybody Identify This?

Somebody sent me these pictures. He Picked it up at a second hand store and found it to be interesting. I also find it very interesting. I’m not sure what it is as the lettering is not Hebrew. could this be a Purim Grogger? Does anybody know what language this is and what it says? If you know what this is you can contact me, or you can contact the owner, Matt Osborn, by clicking here osbornematt@hotmail.com .

Update: An Israeli named David Direktor identified it as a Buddist Prayer wheel. A Google image search confirmed it. Go figure, it took an Israeli to tell us it Tibetan!

More On Starik Battim

The newspaper Hamodia had a nice ‘advertorial’ on Starik battim. I would like to offer the article, and some of my own comments as well. My comments will be in italics:

Baruch Hashem, we live in an age where mitzvos can be done b’hiddur, in an ideal and aesthetic fashion. So many she’eilos of earlier generations are almost unheard of today due to improved circumstances, equipment and technology. Prime examples of this are hiddurim in kashrus as it relates to food production, and with regard to the production of tefillin. However, while  a shopper in a grocery store knows that a mehudar hechsher justifies a higher price, when ait comes to buying tefillin, he faces a dilemma: the Rabbanim place the same hechsher on two pairs of tefillin, but one pair costs $350 and the other costs $550 (they are talking about the battim without the parshios, as gassos sets start at $550) ! And then he learns that neither pair has the hechsher of Harav Avraham Tzvi Halevi Wosner, Rav Haposek of Mishmeres Stam.

To solve this mystery, Hamodia met with the well-known Jerusalem batim macher Reb Meir Starik, the only batim macher who has the halachic supervision and hechsher of Rav Wosner.

How can the same hechsher be affixed on a $350 and a $550 set of battim?

The Hechsher is only a verification that the tefillin are not passul, that the hide of a kosher animal was used and the ibud was done lishmah, (i.e. those processing the hide said aloud before beginning that their work will be done with the intention of producing the holy object of tefillin), that the four lines visible on the tefillin shel rosh are in the right place, that the ribu’a (square shape) was made proberly – in short, that the black coat of paint doesn’t cover up all sorts of shortcuts that modern technology enables a batim macher to make. Quality is not reflected in that hechsher at all.

Can you give an exampole of a shortcut that can be taken that would still allow someone to call a pair of tefillin kosher?

Inexpensive tefillin battim were most likely made from an animal that was skinned two months ago. The hide was dried rapidly and artifically, and when the time came to form the battim that would hold the parchments, exceptional pressure and heat were used. Glue was applied between the sections of the shel rosh to ensure that the tefillin would hold its form, and to give the battim a perfect square shape. Technology allows exceptional heat to be used that seals up all  of the visible blemishes.

How does Starik dry its battim?

First of all, before drying them, we make sure to buy hides of animals that are as thick, soft and oil-free as possible, and for that you have to know the market. The oilier the hide, the harder it is to work with. In the first stages of work our tefillin go through two years, meaning two whole summers during which time they can dry.

One of the hardest parts of tefillin production is this early step of preparing the hides in a lime soulution. It looks as easy as putting hides into a barrel of fluid, but it demands experience and is in fact the most important factor in determining the future of the battim.

In what way is a hide that was dried over a two-year period superior? After all, you said that hides can be dried quickly using modern technology.

Any craftsman can feel the difference between battim that were dried properly and battim that were dried using modern technology. Fully separate sections in the shel rosh (perudos) and the battim holding their square shape (ribua) for longer periods of time are both halachic hiddurim that are the result of quality workmanship.

Battim that were dried completely can retain their form without any need for glue, meaning you can do the famous “razor blade test” in which you insert a blade between any of the four sections of the shel rosh and the blade will go in. Other battim nominally pass this test, but because they are not yet one hundred precent dry, it often happens that a year or so later cracks begin to develop.

By the way, the razor blade test became an issue a few years ago when it came to light that people had purchased tefillin that were not only not mehudar, but were even passul!.

Stay tuned, more coming from this article soon!

Printed, Silk Screened Mezuzah

This picture was emailed to me by the Vaad Lishkas Ha Kodesh. It is a mezuzah that was printed on klaf and afterward the sofer wrote on top of the printed word. This is called ksav on top of ksav, and is assur (forbidden) according to EVERYONE! This issue is really an outgrowth of a topic that the Vaad Lishkas Ha Kodesh brought up several years ago. At that time it was found out that there were people who were silk screening tefillin, mezuzos, and even torah scrolls. They wrote a long article which included the opinions of many many poskim that this was forbidden.

If you look closely you can see where the printed letters still show underneath.  Also, and even more obvious is the perfect spacing, and perfectly consistent lettering. Notice how the exact same amount of space is between each letter, and between each word. Even the best tefillin and mezuzos have slight variations in spacing. Even top quality lettering is doesn’t come out like a computer font (I believe that the hand written quality is actually nicer than a computer font,  just like real art will always be nicer than computer generated art).  It’s just a bit too perfect and consistent. Human beings just can’t write that perfectly!

I’m guessing that your question is, ” If the sofer still has to write all the letters, what does he gain?” The answer is simple. If I could write two and a half (good quality) mezuzos in a day without using this trick, I’m sure I could write five or six mezuzos using it! That’s a pretty big increase in profits! On top of that, I would completely eliminate the possibility of making a spelling mistake. Remember, if the sofer makes a spelling mistake and doesn’t catch it, the whole mezuzah is possel, and if he does catch it before he writes Hashem’s name, he will have to spend a lot of time fixing it, and he will likely have to lower the price of the mezuzah if he doesn’t do a really careful repair.

What Kind of Mezuzos in building with Ashkenazim and Sephardim?

This was taken from the Feb 10th issue of the Yated Ne’eman which in turn took it from Bakehilla (Feb 2, 2012). Rav Elyashiv was asked what kind of mezuzos should be used in the public areas of a building where both Ashkenazim and Sephardim live? Should the mezuzos be Ashkenazic ones, which are mostly written in ksav Beis Yosef, or Sephardic ones, which are written in ksav Ha’ari? His reply was that the mezuzos should go after who is the majority in the building. As for public buildings, such as hospitals, where the population is always in flux, it is best to use mezuzos written in ksav Beis Yosef, since it is more mehudar.

My comments: Separadic mezuzos are not written in ksav Ha’ari, they are written in a form of writing called ‘velish’.  I really doubt that Rav Elyashiv said that Sephardi ksav is the same as Ari. So my conclusion is we can’t learn anything from this article because there are clearly mistakes. My guess, something got lost in the translation.

Mezuzah Guidelines For Factories

I recently consulted with Reb Wosner about a factory that I was hired to take care of the mezuzos. There were hundreds of doors, and the factory had a very strong chemical smell (the kind of smell that makes me never want to use anything that has chemicals in it again). Here are the guidelines that he gave me:

1. All offices in use require mezuzos.

2. Office hallways need mezuzos.

3. Storage rooms need mezuzos.

4. Doors to the outside need mezuzos.

5. Rooms where Jewish workers don’t regularly go do not require mezuzos.

6. Rooms with bad chemical smells don’t need mezuzos.

In this particular factory, this eliminated many of the doors. In all, I put up about ninety mezuzos.

Mekubal Comes To Town

Many people call me to check their mezuzos because a mekubal told them to get their mezuzos checked. Usually the mekubal tells them unbelievable things about them that nobody could know. Sometimes he tells them there is a problem with a certain mezuzah in their home (usually a bedroom). Here is where the story starts to get tricky. Sometimes he will give them a mezuzah and tell them where to put it up. One of my customers told me that the mekubal gave him  a mezuzah and told them to put it up on their bedroom door. Since I checked their mezuzos in the past, he asked me if I could make the switch. I took down the mezuzah from the bedroom, and looked at it. It was an absolutely stunning mezuzah. The writing was beautiful. On the other hand, the mezuzah that the mekubal gave him was way below average. I told this to the customer, and he said, “But the mekubal gave it to me for free!” In other words, since the mekubal wasn’t even making any money from the mezuzah, it must be that he is giving him a very holy mezuzah with no alterior motives. I asked him if he gave money to the mekubal and he answered that he did. So the customer probably gave him $200, and the mekubal gave him a $20 mezuzah. Could it be that his twenty dollar mezuzah was written by a very holy sofer and I just couldn’t see the kidushah (I’m not a mekubal so I can’t see kidushah, I can only see when mezuzos are written according to halachah), and the beautiful one hundred and fifty dollar mezuzah that he was using while beautiful to look at, was written by someone who had improper thoughts or some other problem that can’t be discerned by an examination?   I guess it could be. I told the customer to ask his rabbi, or someone else that he trusts. My opinion is that there are real mekubalim out there, but they are quiet people who aren’t running a ‘business’. I am definitely not qualified to tell you who is real and who is not. Ask your rabbi if he knows the person you want to speak with (he doesn’t, trust me). Don’t be impressed because he told you something nobody knows but you. Don’t be impressed with white beards, and long lines of people sitting in a waiting room (looking like they are carrying the world’s problems on their shoulders). Most importantly, don’t assume that he is real because he seems real (he’s got the right  look and voice, etc.) One final thought: The Vaad Mishmeres Stam does not require or encourage soferim to be versed in the kabalah seforim that deal with tefillin and mezuzos, but they require thorough understanding of the large body of halachos that deal with these topics.

Does Hashem’s Name Appear In The Megillah?

One interesting feature of Megillas Esther is that Hashem’s name does not appear in the entire text. There are however a number of places that hint to Hashem’s name. The owner of the megillah pictured here had the sofer put three dots on top of every word that hints at Hashem’s name. The source for this is from the Chacham Tzvi. I will hopefully bring the exact place that this is brought down. Look three lines up from the bottom at the first four words and you will see the three dots.

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