What are the different styles of Safrut Writing?
Torah scrolls – Sifrei Torah contain the Five Books of Moses (the Pentateuch), written with special black ink on sacred specially lined parchment. Hundreds of laws govern the most minute details of the materials, letter shapes and writing of a Sefer Torah.Written entirely in ancient scribal Hebrew, a sefer Torah contains 304,805 letters, all of which must be duplicated precisely by a trained sofer (“scribe”), an effort which may take as long as approximately one and a half years. Any error during inscription renders the Sefer Torah pasul (“invalid”). Today Sifrei Torah are usually written with 42 lines of text per column – known as Vavei Amudim because the top of each Amud (column) begins with a Vav. This has been designed to give the Torah scroll a uniform artistic appearance, but has nothing to do with Halacha. Very strict rules about the position and appearance of the Hebrew letters are observed. Any of several Hebrew scripts may be used, but usually complex and elegant calligraphy
