page_title: Torah scroll (Yemenite)
section_title: The Large Letters
hierarchical_section_title: Torah scroll (Yemenite) / Irregular letters / The Large Letters
caption_attribution_description: English: A sheet of leather parchment containing the words of the Law (Torah)
context_page_description: Yemenite scrolls of the Law containing the Five Books of Moses represent one of three authoritative scribal traditions for the transmission of the Torah, the other two being the Ashkenazi and Sephardic traditions that slightly differ. While all three traditions purport to follow the Masoretic traditions of Aaron ben Asher, slight differences between the three major traditions have developed over the years. Biblical texts proofread by ben Asher survive in two extant codices, the latter said to have only been patterned after texts proofread by Ben Asher. The former work, although more precise, was partially lost following its removal from Aleppo in 1947.
  The Yemenite Torah scroll is unique in that it contains many of the oddly-formed letters, such as the "overlapping" pe and the "crooked" lamed, etc., mentioned in Sefer Tagae, as also by Menachem Meiri and by Maimonides, although not found in ben Asher's orthography. The old line arrangements employed by the early Yemenite scribes in their Torah scrolls are nearly the same as prescribed by ben Asher.
context_section_description: The Yemenite tradition of writing the Otiyyot Gedolot (Large Letters) in the Torah differs in some respects from other communities, and follows the traditions as they received them from the scribes of old. The following is a list of all the Large Letters found in the Yemenite scroll of the Pentateuch (Five Books of Moses), as published by 17th century Yemenite scribe, Rabbi Yihye Bashiri, in his book, Havatzelet Hasharon:
  Unlike the scribal tradition of Ashkenaz and Sepharad which is to make the nun (נ) of נצר חסד לאלפים in Exodus 34:7 of large size, in the Yemenite Jewish tradition the nun is of regular size. Rabbi Yihye Bashiri, in his Havatzelet HaSharon, brings down other traditions concerning the writing of large and small letters in the Torah scroll, but which traditions were not practised in Yemen, and therefore ought to be reckoned as his sole opinion (since they are not mentioned by the renowned Yemenite scribe David Benayah, neither are they written in the Hibshoosh Codex, nor mentioned by the last Chief Rabbi of Yemen, Rabbi Amram Qorah, or in the vast majority of Yemenite codices. Rabbi Yihye Bashiri had, apparently, culled these other traditions from the writings of the kabbalists and other rabbinic scholars outside of Yemen, and wished to incorporate them in the Yemenite tradition, but which practices had never taken hold in Yemen.
caption: A sheet of leather parchment (Torah)
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