TORAH SCROLL
The faithful transmission of core texts in a form as close as possible to the
original copy is one of the central tenets of all modern faiths, and in the
Torah Scroll we have the single greatest expression of this wish in any text
produced in human history. The text itself contains 304,805 letters and must be
duplicated perfectly by a professional scribe, word-by-word from a correct
exemplar. This particular scroll is an Ashkenazi Torah, and is approximately 128 years
old. It is 106.54 feet long, 17.46 inches high, contains 245 columns with
42 lines per column on 57 panels of Klaph, a specially prepared inside
layer of kosher animal hide, such as a goat, cattle, or deer.
The Ashkenazi tradition of scrolls has Germanic origins and they generally
originate in Europe or in the diaspore from that region, particularly Israel.
This scroll originated from the central-eastern European region and survived the
destructive chaos of World War II and the Holocaust. Although scroll’s ink,
surface, and seams remain in excellent condition, it is a non-kosher scroll,
meaning it is no longer suitable for religious use. This status usually
results from an excessive number of repairs or corrections. This scroll
contains a number of erasures in Genesis and Exodus, along with tear and hole
patches on a number of panels. This rare and authentic Ashkenazi Torah includes many features important as an
object of study, and provides RTS students a firsthand engagement with an
artifact that will teach them about the preservation of the Bible as a living
testimony to the faithful transmission of God's Word across the centuries. |
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