First Post

The worldwide Jewish community begins its annual reading of the Book of Exodus (שמות, Shemóth) this week, and will continue for the next few months.

I thought that this would be a great opportunity to present, each week, shtiklech about graphical features of this book, from MS Bodleian 202.

In old Torah scrolls from Ashkenaz-Tzarfath-Italia, we find various interestingly-shaped letters -- either they have special tittles issuing (tagin, "crowns") issuing from them, or there shape is interesting in some other way. One of the most common non-crown features is the so called "curly pe" (פ"א לפופה, pe lefufa), a tradition which exists also in Yemenite Torah scrolls.

Although we see material evidence of this tradition only starting in medieval Europe, Shlomo Zucker writes (I'll have to find the citation) that it goes back to first-millennium Middle East. I have heard the same assertion from Jordan Penkower. (Presumably, there is literary evidence for it.)

MS Bodleian 202 is valuable, for it is a commentary on Exodus, from the school of the Hasidé Ashkenaz, which comments on the meaning behind these graphical features of the text. It is attributed to Eleazar ben Moshe Ha-darshan.

I know of no other such commentary, certainly not of this scope. (Mind you, the commentary comments on many other features of the text, too -- the bit about the graphical features is only a small piece of it. And if I feel like it, I might include some of the non-graphically-based comments on this blog, too.)

Each week, I hope to present some piece of this, related to the weekly parasha.