A sofer, sopher, sofer SeTaM, or sofer ST"M (Hebrew: סופר סת״ם, "scribe"; plural soferim, סופרים) is a Jewish scribe who can transcribe Sifrei Kodesh (holy scrolls), tefillin (phylacteries), mezuzot (ST"M, סת״ם, is an abbreviation of these three terms) and other religious writings.
By simple definition, soferim are copyists, but their religious role in Judaism is much more. Besides sifrei Torah, tefillin, and mezuzot, scribes are necessary to write the Five Megillot (scrolls of the Song of Songs, Book of Ruth, Book of Esther, Ecclesiastes, and Book of Lamentations), Nevi'im (the books of the prophets, used for reading the haftarah), and for gittin, divorce documents. Many scribes also function as calligraphers—writing functional documents such as ketubot (marriage contracts), or ornamental and artistic renditions of religious texts, which do not require any scribal qualifications, and to which the rules on lettering and parchment specifications do not apply.
The major halakha pertaining to sofrut, the practice of scribal arts, is in the Talmud in the tractate "Maseket Sofrim". In the Torah's 613 commandments, the second to last[1] is that every Jew should write a sefer Torah before they die.[2]
- ^ 82nd of the 613 commandments as enumerated by Rashi, and the second to final as it occurs in the text of the Torah, Book of Deuteronomy 31:19, the final being in Deuteronomy 32:38
- ^ Deuteronomy 31:19