Report: Workshop with Jewish community of Hamburg

9. Juni 2022, von Webmaster

Foto: UHH/IJPR

The Institute for Jewish Philosophy and Religion, the Rabbinerseminar, and the Jewish community of Hamburg held a one day workshop on June 9th focusing on some theoretical and practical aspects of writing Torah scrolls, Mezuzoth, and Tefilin. The workshop started with two lectures by Giuseppe Veltri and Racheli Haliva which emphasised the historical background and a discussion of a particular halakha in Maimonides’s Mishneh Torah which seemed to go against the traditional approach. These two lectures were followed by three lectures and “on-site” live practice given by Rabbiner Arye Merkhasin and Rabbiner Nathan Grinberg. During these three talks, the participants had the unique opportunity to view how scribes prepare the instruments before writing and to view the stages of writing. The workshop was concluded by Rabbiner Shlomo Bistritzky who talked about "Small and Big Letters in the Torah and the 24 Holy Books.” In his talk, Rabbiner Bistritzky offered several commentaries and interpretations to explain the different sizes of some of the letter in the Hebrew bible.