Sofer

A Sofer, Sopher, Sofer SeTaM, or Sofer ST"M (Heb: "scribe", סופר סת״ם) is a Jewish scribe who can transcribe Torah scrolls, tefillin and mezuzot, and other religious writings. (ST"M, סת״ם, is an abbreviation for Sefer Torahs, Tefillin, and Mezuzot. The plural of sofer is "soferim", סופרים.)

By simple definition, a sofer is a copyist, but the religious role in Judaism is much more. Besides Torah scrolls, Tefillin, and Mezuzot, scribes are also necessary to write of 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. Also, many scribes function as calligraphers—writing functional documents such as 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 Jewish law (Halakha) pertaining to "Sofrut," the practice of scribal arts, is in the Talmud in the tractate Maseket Sofrim. In the Torah's 613 Mitzvot (commandments) the 613th is that every Jew should write a Sefer Torah in their lifetime.(Deut. 31:19)

Soferim (Talmud)

Masekhet Soferim "The Tractate of the Scribes" (Hebrew: מסכת סופרים) is a non-canonical Talmudic treatise dealing especially with the rules relating to the preparation of the holy books, as well as with the regulations for the reading of the Law.

It belongs to the so-called "smaller tractates," a term applied to about 15 works in rabbinical literature, each containing all the important material bearing on a single subject. While they are mishnaic in form and are called "treatises," the topics discussed in them are arranged more systematically; for they are eminently practical in purpose, being, in a certain sense, the first manuals in which the data scattered through prolix sources have been collected in a brief and comprehensive form.

Date and authorship

The work is generally thought to have originated in eighth-century Palestine, and being of late and uncertain date is now generally printed as Talmudic addenda.

Position among the "Smaller Treatises"

Ancient authorities mention especially seven such treatises, which are doubtless the earliest ones; and among these the tractate containing the rules on the writing of the "books" occupies a particularly prominent place on account of the importance of its contents. The name as well as the form of the smaller treatises indicates that they originated in the period of oral tradition which was dominated by the Talmud and the Midrash, so that these treatises are doubtless of great antiquity, some of them having been compiled in their main outlines before even the final redaction of the Talmud in the 6th century. This theory holds good with regard to the treatise Sefer Torah also, to which the treatise Soferim bears an especially close relation.