Torah Scrolls Need Loving Care, Too

IT’S WIDELY ACKNOWLEDGED that regular maintenance and cleaning is needed to keep ספרי תורה sifrei Torah (Torah scrolls) in usable condition, and to preserve their useful life at the lowest overall cost. How­ever, the lore is not well known. 

In this post, I give some basic how-to guidance as gleaned from several סופרים sof’rim (Torah scribes). I also offer some sample photos of anomalies from last year’s inventory of our scrolls.

In this scroll, which is said to be some 3 centuries old,
the scribe patched the parchment even before inscribing it—
and then worked around it.

Recently, Morley Berenbach (the newest member of our committee) offered to serve as the custodian of our scrolls. If you are interested in assisting him in this effort, please let me know.

The Basics

1. Roll the scrolls regularly. (This prevents the ink from fading and cracking, and it refreshes the air that is trapped within the scroll.) In a coastal climate, every scroll should be rolled from beginning to end at least once a year.
2. Wash (and dry!) your hands well before handling the parchment. Take care to ensure that it does not become moist from perspiration or contaminated by skin oils.
3. As you roll through the scroll, notice if anything pops out as questionable. Look for letters that have begun to fade and crumble—but don’t go looking for trouble. Remember, a kosher (ritually usable) scroll remains kosher until a non-kosher letter is noticed. So don’t inspect it more closely than someone would when chanting aloud from the scroll.
4. Roll the scroll snugly so that it doesn't sag, and make sure that its edges don’t rub against the wooden disks. Frayed edges will develop into tears. And tears will need to be patched.
5. Identify and mark any observed problems; take photos for evalua­tion by an expert. (Repairs are easiest to make when problems are caught in their early stages.) The safest way to mark the spot is in the corresponding place in a Tikkun Kor’im (practice book for Torah readers), with a note explaining the nature of the problem. Do not make any mark on the parchment itself. Do not apply any kind of tape except acid-free artists' tape, which can placed in the margin but not over any of the text itself. And don’t use any kind of clip, because that risks creasing or tearing the parchment, especially if it's not removed right away.
6. As you roll, very gently wipe dust and grit off of the surface with a soft, lint-free silk or microfiber cloth (such as is used to clean eyeglasses). However, please stop performing this step if it seems to be dislodging flaking ink. That might well create more problems than it solves.
7. When letters appear smudged, the area can sometimes be cleaned up simply via gentle wiping. Such light cleaning can also reveal places where a loss of ink warrants further attention. However, if cleaning might cause a Torah to cross over from being kosher to being pasul (ritually unusable), perhaps hold off cleaning until you are prepared (financially and otherwise) for the consequences.

Sample Anomalies

Worn or damaged spots can be patched, as was done here.

A correction appears to have been made in this spot by a different scribe.

Letters can start to fade as the ink wears off. Or perhaps its ingredients were not properly mixed.

This scroll got wet on its bottom edge. Mildew has set in. Maybe an insurance claim should be filed.

This torn edge is in need of repair. (A scribe can glue a patch on the back.)

This frayed stitching between panels needs to be re-sewn.  

Scribes sometimes apply tape across a seam, to take pressure off of the stitching.
In this case, however, the tape’s adhesive has failed.