Torah scroll (Yemenite)

Did You Know?

• The Yemenite Torah scroll is traditionally written on 51 lines per column, for a total of 226 columns.
• The Yemenite tradition in plene and defective scriptum is nearly in complete harmony with the Aleppo Codex.

Prosaic Song of the Sea

The Song of the Sea (Shirat ha-Yam) in Exodus 15:1–19 is traditionally arranged in lines resembling half-bricks set over whole bricks. Rabbi Meir ben Todros Halevi, seeking the correct tradition, corresponded with Shemuel ibn Tibbon of Marseille, who sent a copy of the line arrangement from a scroll copied from Maimonides’ own Torah scroll. Ibn Tibbon reported that the three words את מי הים appeared at the beginning of the last line. Rabbi Meir ben Todros, however, deviated from this tradition, deciding that the second-to-last line should also end in one word, as all previous lines had. The author of Minḥat Shai followed this change. Yemenite Jews maintain the older arrangement, following ben Asher's format for both the beginning and ending words of each line. Dr. Penkower of Bar-Ilan University noted that the Yemenite manuscripts of the Torah have the exact line arrangement of the Song of the Sea as found in the Aleppo Codex, including the last two lines and the surrounding lines. While all communities write the song on thirty lines, the concluding format was altered in some communities due to doubts raised by Rabbi Meir Abulafia ben Todros. An old Sephardic codex (Vat. ebr. 448) from the 11th–12th century shows the arrangement as prescribed by ben Asher and as found in the Yemenite tradition, before Rabbi Meir b. Todros Halevi's emendation.

Other line arrangements

A rabbinic dictum instructs scribes to ensure that certain columns begin with fixed words, remembered by the mnemonic בי"ה שמ"ו (alluding to Psalm 68:5). In the Yemenite tradition, these letters correspond to specific verses: bet for בראשית (Gen. 1:1), yod for יהודה אתה יודוך (Gen. 49:8), he for הבאים אחריהם בים (Exo. 14:28), shin for שמר ושמעת (Deut. 12:28), mim for מוצא שפתיך תשמר (Deut. 23:24), and waw for ואעידה בם (Deut. 31:28). Only two verses in the entire Torah begin a column in the middle of a verse (Exo. 14:28 and Deut. 31:28); all other columns start with a new verse. In Parashat Shemini (Leviticus 10:16), scribes were to write the first דרש at the very end of a line and the second דרש at the start of the next line. In a Yemenite Torah scroll now belonging to Azriel ben Saadia Tzadok of Benei Barak, the first דרש appears at the end of line 14 and the second at the start of line 15. Other key words determine column layout, such as in Numbers 31:5, where the lamed of ישראל is written at the end of one line above the ʾalef of צבא at the end of the following line, suggesting Israel placed above other nations. The verse יולך ה' אתך ואת מלכך is traditionally placed at the start of a new column in Yemenite scrolls, a practice alluded to in connection with Josiah's discovery of the Temple scroll.

Forms of the letters and special techniques

Yemenite Torah scrolls have a distinct writing style, using square Hebrew script like other communities. The letter ḥet was traditionally written with a flat roof, not a gable-roof as prescribed by Rabbeinu Tam, though modern scrolls have adopted the latter method. In Yemenite scrolls, Hebrew letters are suspended slightly below the ruled lines rather than hanging directly from them. Rabbi David ben Zimra noted that in Aden, the left leg of the letter he was slightly joined to its roof, a practice he disqualified, though Rabbi Isaac ben Sheshet and Rabbi Joseph Colon had validated it. The old Yemenite practice of slightly joining the leg of he or qof to its roof eventually changed to conform with other communities in Israel. Rabbi Yosef Qafih argued that such letters should not be disqualified, even though the custom in Israel had changed. Rabbi Yitzhak Razhabi observed that the Yemenite tradition includes over 400 peculiar types of letters (special forms of certain characters) in the Torah, which scribes strictly adhered to, though neglecting them does not invalidate a scroll.

Testimonials

Yaakov Sapir, a Lithuanian Jewish scholar from Jerusalem, traveled to Yemen in 1859 and described the Torah scrolls and codices he found there. He noted several differences in defective and plene letters compared to other traditions, such as minnaso (Gen. 4:13) lacking a waw, maʻayanoth (Gen. 7:11) lacking a waw, wiyiheyu kol yamei noaḥ (Gen. 9:28) with an added waw, teʻaseh (Exo. 25:31) lacking a yod, and ḥodsheikhem (Num. 10:10) with an added yod. He also observed differences in the layout of the Song of the Sea and in certain closed sections of the Law. Sapir later recalled that he had taken a Yemenite Torah scroll and corrected it according to his own books, but afterwards, in Paris in 1865, he saw a manuscript of Kiryat Sefer by the Meiri in the library of Rabbi Hertz Ginsburg, which led him to recognize his error.