Tag (Hebrew writing)
A tag (Aramaic: תגא, plural tagin, תגאין) is a decoration drawn over some Hebrew letters in the Jewish scrolls of Sifrei Torah, Tefillin, Mezuzot and the Five Megillot. The Hebrew name for this Scribal feature is kether (כתר). Both tag and kether mean 'crown' in Aramaic and Hebrew respectively.
In modern paleography, the letters Beth, Daleth, He, Heth, Yud and Quf have one tag (Mnemonic: BeDeQ-ChaYaH בדק חיה). The letters Gimel, Zayin, Tet, Nun, Ayin, Tzadi and Shin, as far back as Talmudic times, have 3 tags (Mnemonic: Sha´ATNeZ-GaTz שעטנז גץ). In kabbalistic thought, each tagi has special significance and meaning. Some manuscripts feature embellished tagin on the top line of each column and some also on all occurrences of the Tetragrammaton other than those prefixed with a lamed (b. Seferot).
The Talmud states that tagin was originally added to the text by God at Mount Sinai, and that Rabbi Akiva would use their presence in order to derive laws.[1]
About the 2nd century CE, a work called Sefer Tagin (ספר תאגין or ספר תאגי) emerged attributed to Rabbi Akiva which laid out the 1960 places where modified tagin or letter forms occur in a Torah Scroll. In it, the locations of letters which receive a number of tagin which differs from the sha'atnez gatz tradition, e.g. the initial beit of bereshith in Genesis 1:1 having 4 tagin as opposed to the usual 1 and the instances of aleph which bear 7 tagin apiece. According to this work, each occurrence of each letter is to be written with between 0 and 7 tagin, as delineated in the lists contained therein.[2] This tradition, predating the versification of the Torah text, contains some instruction which is difficult to know what verses are being referenced, thus in the 12th century, the Rambam ruled that though a scribe should do his utmost to incorporate all of the elements of this tradition, called otiyyot meshunot (strange letters), if they are omitted, whether in full or in part, the scroll would not be ruled as pasul (invalid).[3]
See also[]
- Ktav Stam § Serifs (tagin)
References[]
- ^ Menahot 29b
- ^ Brian Tice, Sefer Tagin (ספר תאגין): An Ancient Sofer Manual (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Yiddishkeit 101, 2021). ISBN 979-8-4929-0692-4.
- ^ Moshe ben Maimon (Rambam), Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Sefer Torah uMezuzah v'Tefillin 7:8.
External links[]
- Sofer (scribal) penmanship for ritual STA"M use of Kulmusim quill
- Halachic origins in Gemara, the Babylonian Tractate Menachot 29
- Conventions in use
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