(Click on image to ENLARGE it) Robotlab, a group in Germany, has created an industrial robot that has been programmed to write the entire Sefer Torah. A group of artists are working on a project that examines the relationship between humans and machines, and envisions the roles that robots will play in the future.
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33 Responses
will the robot write with all the chumras?? we it go to the mikva? say leshem mitzva ect.????
Do you think the Bot hits the Mikvah before writing?
Hmmm… I don’t think there was anything about this in Gittin 45b.
Can it lein too?
how could that be lishma?
Will the robot have the proper kavuna when writing the sefer?
The robot has been programmed to write a version of the Martin Luther (שר”י) Bible, including both the Old and New Testaments, in German, on paper. Call me pedantic, but I wouldn’t call that, “Programmed to write the entire Sefer Torah.”
I hope that they know it must be done by a person…
Why do I have to state the obvious?
I think a woman or an anow yehudi is not allowed to make tzitzis. If this is so, how can it be ok for a robot to write a Torah?
to poster 8 not only is it assur for women and goyim to write a sefer torah but it says in mishnas hasofer that one specifically needs to use his own hands not even covered by gloves to write a sefer torah because he is creating kedusha. the yokels who decided to make this ‘bot are total meshugayim probably goyim gemurim. it is like the crazy people who acouple years ago stared selling silk screened sifrei torah. every part of every letter must be written LISHMA.
Show where in the Torah it says a robot cant write a sefer torah – Too often we ourselves do mitvot like robots – mitzvat anoshim milmidoh – we should take mussar from here
Ani Tapuach- I like your point… Everything in this world happens for us, Klal Yisrael!!!
Are we reading our messages? Stop keeping Torah like robots and do it lishma and with proper kavanos!!!
I wonder if the robot is actually writing it out on a sefer Torah or if it is writing it in bible form (a book).
A sefer torah is written with ktav ashuri in hebrew not latin or english as shown on image…
Next this you’ll see robots or monkeys silk screening Torahs
Notice how its writing Left to Right. Must be a Goyesha programer.
IF THE GUY WHO PRESSES THE BUTTON TO ACTIVATE the robot will have in mind lishmah then perhaps it would be kosher. according to those who hold machine matxos are olishmah then this sefer torah one can argue is comparable. in short the sefe torah is the same shallooh as macine matxos. of couse all halach must be decided by a competent rov which I am not.
There is a local non-Frum bookstore that sells Treif photographed Mezuzah scrolls. Now it can sell equally Treif machine-written Torahs and Mezuzos.
is this new method replacing the “silkscreen kesiva” Did they get any haskomas yet
For all u frumsters: I dont think this was intended for real ksiva so you could forget about mikveh, lshem…, lishma, kavana. . . whatever.
YW is trying to be cute by posting INTERESTING news articles to fill the page – doing this w/o KAVANA that people will start making deyukim etc.
So start thinking of other stuff to make something of.
To #17: Nonsense! They Torah says “YOU have to write YOURSELVES a Sefer Torah” (Kisvu Lochem).
Where does it say that about Matzo? Do you also bake the Matzo by hand or do you use an oven? Where’s the “lishma” in the wood burning?
– Danny, who eats only machine matzos and wrote his own Sefer Torah.
Instead of coming up with such a useless idea as having a computer write a Sefer Torah… the programers’ time would be much better spent creating a robot that can clean for Pesach!!!
>Robotlab, a group in Germany,
Amen #16, Amen
#10
You are correct. If you wish to know about the halachos of writing STaM, look in the Keses HaSofer and the Mishnas Hasofer.
Bottom line is a sofer MUST be a Human, Male, Yehudi, with LOTS of Yiras Shumayim.
My parnasa is that I sell STaM, and I will not use any parashios written by any any “unknown” sofer. The Rov HaMagia must tell me that he knows the sofer personally, and that he personally knows him to be a may whose love and fear of Hashem is stronger than any other part of him.
There are many reasons for this. There are many VERY easy corrections that are ossur. But once they are done, it is impossible to know they were not done correctly. Though writing a sefer Torah is easier halachakly than writing a tefillin parasha, it still needs to be done by a sofer who has lots of Yiras Shomayim.
I was going to go for smicha in HaGaah (shimush), but changed my mind, for I did not consider myself roui. Though my rov told me to “go ahead” you will be fine, I am afraid of the nisyonos.
For instance in writing a tefillin parasha, EACH oiys MUST be written in sequence. This means that if I am on line 4 of a parasha, and see a simple correction of a daled where I should have written a Reish, it is OSSUR for me to go back and fix it. If I do so, the parasha is 100% Possul, even B’Dayeved. The same if I am actually right on that letter when writing, if I simply change the Daled to a Raish the parasha is possul, since you MUST write with kesiva, not mechika. What a temptation for a sofer struggling for parnasa. He already had hours into that parasha, like a shel yad parasha, and he sees a mistake in line one that should make him put the parasha in geniza. However, his Yetzer Hora says, “Who will know if you just change that daled to a raish? You will recover so many hours of hard work? After all, who wrote those halachos anyway? They are not B’Fayrush in the Torah?…” and all the rest of the lies the Yetzer Hora can tell us.
Well, to be honest, I chickened out. I will happily be a moicher, but refuse to write, (easier smicha before hagaa/shimush)…or check parashios myself for this reason. I question my own yiras shomayim
So, some of you are saying: Hey, that is true. Where does it say all those “Chumros”?
Guys, those are not chumros. Those are the most basic halachos of writing/checking STaM
The bottom line accepted by all are the seforim:
Keses Ha Sofer and the Mishnas HaSofer. Those seforim make up the foundation of STaM – writing halachos.
Even “Just Checking” … what if you are checking a pair of BEAUTIFUL tefillin parashios, and you mess up and damage a letter in the first parasha of the shel rosh. If the damage is one of the many that can’t be fixed, you need to have the courage to tell the owner of the tefillin: “Reb Yid, your tefillin WERE beautiful, but I messed up and by my erasing or ruining one letter, I totally ruined your tefillin, and you now need a complete new set of parashios.” You may be afraid that he will no longer use you, and tell his friends to stop using you. So you may be tempted to listen to the Yetzer Hora….
How easy it would be to just fix it. Who would know? Or, how easy it would be to lie, and say, “wow! The writing is beautiful, but look what I FOUND!”
That is why a sofer and a Magia/Checker/Bodek, MUST be a really frum person who had lots of Yirah.
So, what is the world does all this have to do with this silly Robot? The robot after all is just a stunt. He is not writing in Ksav Ashuris/Hebrew, so who cares.
Here is my concern.
If a shomer Shabbos, Frum person knows that deep inside he is afraid of the nisyonos of cheating in writing or being magia STaM, imagine the temptations given to those who are already cheating. This can give these reshoyim newer ways of creating possul STaM that winds up in shuls and on people’s arms worldwide.
It is now a thought. Can we make a bracha on a sefer Torah when visiting a shul and not knowing the origin of the sefer.
There is a old (but true) story of one of the Yeshivish giants, who came to his new town to be the Rosh Yeshiva. Upon walking home on Shabbos, he passed a store front where there was a sign, “Sofer STaM” with lights burning. He stopped and saw this Jew writing a sefer Torah ON SHABBOS!
He stormed into the establishment, and confronted the “sofer” …”How dare you write on Shabbos? You know that makes the Torah Possul? Who would buy any Torah written by the likes of you who would intentionally write a 100% Possul Sefer Torah?”
The “Sofer” replied, “Oh, you must be from one of those who want to go back to the olden days. Don’t worry about my parnasah, or that of my many friends. There are many of us writing 7-days a week, and we have no problems selling these seforim! Some go to shuls here in Europe, and many go to the USA where they only know they are buying Torahs from these holy European towns. Fear not, we are all doing very well.”
Sound shocking? It should. But it is true, and thus many hundreds of Sifrei Torah written this way, 100% Possul, corrected only by Geniza, are today sitting in shuls and batai medroshim across the US.
The same with some produced today by similar crooks. Like the “sofer” who teaches his wife to write, or hires a goyta who does calligraphy, and teaches her to write. You have all heard of the Arab Goytas in E. Israel, writing STaM.
Now, if you bring those finished products to a sofer here to be checked, and he will say, “Wow, beautiful writing. A very hidurdik Parasha, Torah, Mezzuzah, etc.,”
Remember, when a sofer “Checks” a Torah, or parasha, he is only checking what he can see. He is not checking the validity of the original sofer, nor that the halachos were followed properly during writing.
THAT is what I am afraid of. Another tool for the reshayim to use.
15 minutes from my house is a “Judaica Store” who sells mezzuzahs written by his daughter. If you look Frum he does not tell you. If you look Reform, he tells you this with pride. In fact, he charges more for his daughter’s work than for the mezzuza klafs he buys elsewhere.
So, PLEASE, let’s all be careful, to make sure we don’t even sound like we approve of this… not even in a joke.
One of the bigger silk screeners was caught by someone who was checking a man’s mezzuzahs and after checking the 5th one, said to himself, “Didn’t I check this one already?” He discovered the fraud, but accidentally noticing that they were all identical.
STaM written by a Robot, will be unique, imitating too well what is written by hand.
And, since they will not talk, the rosha who utilized them does not need to fear they will blackmail him, the way the Arab woman whose conscious bothered her, and told a major Rov/Magia in Eretz Yisroel about how this Moicher STaM was using her and her Arab women to write mezzuzahs and tefillin.
The Robot will keep the secret.
Though I am sure those who joked above, meant nothing wrong, I fear that someone reading these posts later, may see the jokes and take them are real, thinking that… well… maybe it IS okay to use this Robot. Maybe he can be called an “extended kulmus” or some other silly heter that may spread.
So, instead of “Programming the Robot to write with kavuna!” let’s all keep educating each other in the seriousness of knowing where STaM comes from.
#25 – DM, you’re awesome – but I just want to tell you that when I see a post that is waaaaaay too long, I know immediately that it is yours! 🙂
Thanks for the common sense and intelligence that you inject here on YW!
#15 – You are really observant!! The robot really is writing backwards! (Click the picture and check it out!)
Here is what I wrote on another blog:
Hey… let’s be careful to not poke fun or discriminate against Robots. We all know it will not be long until we have Robot Geyrim. It is only a matter or waiting until they perfect them as 100% waterproof, so they can go to the mikvah for their giyur. We will then have Silocon-based Yidden.
Then we will have Robots among klall yisroel. In fact, a rov who begins a very small kehilla, can maybe lease a few robots to be a core of mispallilim or to be mashlim a minyan. Then, as soon as he has enough carbon-based Yidden, he can send some of those back.
Oy! But, once they are migayair, they will want total autonomy. In fact the Beis Din will surely require the Robot’s autonomy as a condition of giyur. Oh, well, no leasing of them. We could need to attract them.
Now, we know there will be some group who will want to force some difference, “For Identification Purposes” … maybe like in their names. If a Silicon-based Yid is named Moishe Silver, we may be asked to place an “R” before his name, as Asimov used in his Robot novel. So he would be called R. Moishe, the “R” for Robot.
That would work fine, until all the rest, the carbon-based Yidden would want their names to stop having the “R”… So, we could not write R. Yankel for Reb Yankel. We would always have to write it all out, so some do not accidentally mistake the R of Reb for the R of Robot.
My G-d… why are we so prejudiced…
Oh well… AS soon as we work out out the problems, and have a Robot Ger and a Robot Giyeres, we can then have a Robot Sofer. Why not? Most poskim hold that a Ger may write STaM, so why not a Silicon-based Yid who started off as a Robot?
In fact, we can surely program in Yiras Shomayim.
DM,
Can we get a robot that can hold your hands away from the keyboard once you hit 100 words?
Eliezer,
Ah… well said. I am wasting too much time online.
to daniel—– MATZOH MUST BE MADE BY A HUMAN AND lishmah , yet some poskim allow a machine.
DM – don’t let a little friendly teasing here get to you. your posts are good – keep posting here!
the chacham tzvi has a famous tshuva regarding counting a robot for a minyan. the chofetz chaim mentions the teshuva (in halochos of zimun)
(actually it was if a golem / robot created using methods discussed in sefer yetzira (mentioned in last week’s rashi) can be counted for a minyan.)
MiMedinat HaYam ~ Thank You. Now I know it was not shtus, it was Halacha L’Maaseh, Torah