Guide
The Importance of Spelling in a Torah Scroll
3rd–5th Centuries
Restricted
This midrash preserved in Sifre Deuteronomy interprets the practical legal meaning of the biblical commandment to “inscribe them” (Deuteronomy 6:9) as detailing that each and every letter of a Torah scroll must be written and spelled properly and further explains that all the Torah’s paragraph breaks must be in the correct place and the poetic passages laid out properly. It concludes that any scroll in which the divine name is written in gold ink must be set aside, that is, removed from ritual use. The Talmud addresses the same issues. For a literary witness to a Torah scroll being written with gold ink, see “The Law Arrives in Alexandria.”
Related Primary Sources
Primary Source
Sifre Deuteronomy on Spelling in a Torah Scroll
And inscribe them [ketavtam] (Deuteronomy 6:9)—with perfectly formed letters [ktav shalem]. On this basis they taught: If the copyist of a Torah-scroll wrote alephs as ayins or ayins as alephs; or bet…
Primary Source
The Talmud on Spelling in a Torah Scroll
[Similarly, one should not write] bent [letters like kaf and nun found in the middle of a word as] straight [letters like kaf and nun found at the end of a word, nor should one write] straight…