The Double Peh and other Letters of Distinction
Our scroll is unusual because it is written by a sofer from the "Prague School of Kabbalists." This style is noted by the placement of small letters inside of large letters, for example, פ 's with a little פ inserted into the פ. Since the war, no sofer has written a Torah scroll this way because the Nazis murdered every member of this school of scribes, and we do not know why they wrote letters this way. Lacking this knowledge, scribes since the war do not believe they are qualified to duplicate this style of writing.
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Comparison of the Doubled Peh from different manuscripts. Source: Baal HaTurim Chumash: The Torah with the Baal HaTurim’s Classic Commentary. Ed. Avie Gold. Mesorah Publications, 2003. p. 1597
Retrieved from: THE MYSTERY OF THE WRAPPED PEI — BY DEVORAH by Deborah Thompson |
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Deborah Thompson, has been doing extensive research on the double peh and other distinct/special/extraordinary letters in some of the oldest Torah scrolls. Upon seeing a Torah scroll rescued from the Holocaust in Worms, Germany she wrote:
Then I saw it: a strange letter in the middle of a block of text, in the word HaMishpatim, ‘the laws’. It was a Pei פ (the seventeenth letter of the Aleph Bet) with a large whorl inside its mouth. Of all the unusual letters I’d come across, I had never seen anything like this. The Spiral Pei appeared again a few lines below the first, on a similar word. My heart raced.
Do you see them? The two spiral letters?
I couldn’t comprehend what I was seeing. I had never learned anything about another version of the Pei, and this could have been unique. But something deep in me refused to believe that this was merely a beautiful scribal flourish.
Then I saw it: a strange letter in the middle of a block of text, in the word HaMishpatim, ‘the laws’. It was a Pei פ (the seventeenth letter of the Aleph Bet) with a large whorl inside its mouth. Of all the unusual letters I’d come across, I had never seen anything like this. The Spiral Pei appeared again a few lines below the first, on a similar word. My heart raced.
Do you see them? The two spiral letters?
I couldn’t comprehend what I was seeing. I had never learned anything about another version of the Pei, and this could have been unique. But something deep in me refused to believe that this was merely a beautiful scribal flourish.
In Sefer Tagin, Minchat Shai, and the commentary of the Baal HaTurim (Rabbi Jacob ben Asher c.1269-1343) Ms. Thompson found some answers:
The Baal HaTurim explains that this unusual Pei, which he refers to as the Pei Kefulah (Doubled Pei), teaches us specific lessons each time it appears in the text. This letter represents many things, including themes of delving deeply and doubling. A few examples:
The Baal HaTurim explains that this unusual Pei, which he refers to as the Pei Kefulah (Doubled Pei), teaches us specific lessons each time it appears in the text. This letter represents many things, including themes of delving deeply and doubling. A few examples:
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(Devarim 7:12) This Pei Kefulah [on HaMishpatim, ‘these laws’] indicates that it is necessary for a judge to probe and to
nvestigate in order to arrive at the depths of the law. The judge must understand that each testimony is doubled; there are two sides to every story. |
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(Devarim 15:8) This Pei Kefulah [on phato’ach, ‘open thy hand’] indicates that you who are giving money to another should open, not only your hand, but also your mouth, and speak reassuring words to the recipient (this is a play on words: Peh literally means ‘mouth’).
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Sadly, Ms. Thompson has discovered that the Double Peh's are endangered letters:
....I’ve discovered from more than one scribe that Doubled Pei’s are not only left out of new Torah scrolls and mostly forgotten, but Doubled Pei’s are actually being erased from old Torah scrolls by scribes and are then replaced by normal Pei’s. This may be because scribes, ignorant of the Masoretic tradition, believe that these weird spiral letters are unkosher. But before now, countless scribes have faithfully copied this idiosyncratic curly letter for millennia. Even the great Rambam (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, c.1137-1204) himself wrote that the Wrapped Pei was ancient and must be protected, and yet this strange and wonderful Hebrew letter is now endangered.
In a way, I feel as if the Spiral-Doubled-Pei called out to me personally. It cried out from a torn Torah in a cold museum vitrine where no one else was listening. The mouth of the Pei spoke, saying,
פקוד פקדתי פתח תפתח פנימה
Remember me! Open up and unwrap the meaning within me.
As an artist, scholar, writer, researcher, and daughter of Israel, I feel obliged to delve into the whorls of the Pei Kefulah and deeply understand them—not only for myself—but to share them with others, lest this remarkable letter disappear completely.
In a way, I feel as if the Spiral-Doubled-Pei called out to me personally. It cried out from a torn Torah in a cold museum vitrine where no one else was listening. The mouth of the Pei spoke, saying,
פקוד פקדתי פתח תפתח פנימה
Remember me! Open up and unwrap the meaning within me.
As an artist, scholar, writer, researcher, and daughter of Israel, I feel obliged to delve into the whorls of the Pei Kefulah and deeply understand them—not only for myself—but to share them with others, lest this remarkable letter disappear completely.
Retrieved from: Teaching Otiot Meshunot by Deborah Thompson
Excerpted from: THE MYSTERY OF THE WRAPPED PEI — BY DEVORAH by Deborah Thompson
For a more in depth study please see Teaching Otiot Meshunot by Deborah Thompson
For a more in depth study please see Teaching Otiot Meshunot by Deborah Thompson
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