When the future’s most advanced technology meets 17th century rabbis’ signatures

Artificial intelligence at the service of the world of antiquities – will Al recognize the signatures of the pupils of the Chatam Sofer and the Divrei Chaim of Tzanz?? At the leading auction house ‘Tiferet’ they never stop innovating, exploring and surprising.

In recent months, the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution has penetrated our lives and it erupted speedily and strongly, while leaving nothing certain along the way.

Cautious forecasts speak of the fact that many professions will become irrelevant, there are many, among them reasonable and responsible experts, who warn that the whole of humanity will change, and will look very different.

The hysterical and historic leap made by the artificial intelligence software amazes the world, and as mentioned, causes considerable concern, but the enormous advantages and benefits that artificial intelligence brings with it cannot be ignored.

Artificial intelligence is used today, starting with the curious and the unemployed, who through a simple request from the GPT software receive landscape or photoshop images that serve for pleasure or amusement, through many commercial websites and trade branches, all of which use Al for the purpose of promoting their websites and products, in a more sophisticated and accurate way. And artificial intelligence reaches the world of medicine – where it creates real miracles.

As a matter of fact, the world of medicine has been using artificial intelligence in its various forms for over 40 years, for example using information diagnosis, learning, and analyzing x-rays and much more, in countless fields.

————-

In sharp transition – to a world of content that seems as far removed from future technology as there is, and from there, to those who wish to connect them and use the capabilities of the future for identification and precision in treasures of the past.

The branch of Torah related Judaica, ancient holy literature, important books from renowned printings, or letters of rabbis and Gedolei Yisrael, the tzaddikim of Chasidus and the Poskim of past generations, turns in many billions every year. Thousands of interested parties and collectors who keep spiritual treasures and cherished items from the glorious heritage of Judaism for generations.

Among the collectors and dealers, there are some who wish to preserve these important treasures, whose importance is inestimable, many are also – especially in the post-Corvid era – who wish to invest their money in highly valuable items whose value and price only keeps going up all the time, and therefore purchasing of ancient manuscripts has been increasing ever since Covid, and some also do this as a hobby.

Those like these – all those involved in the field, are familiar with the great fear of forgeries. The difficult challenge of identifying manuscripts, associating them with a certain rabbi and accurately diagnosing the authentic handwriting, not a student’s handwriting or a later copy.

Let’s take as an example the chatam Sofer – Rabbi Moshe Sofer of Perrysburg, the greatest of our generations.

His unique and characteristic handwriting was an inspiration to many students who imitated their rabbi in every way, so much so that without realizing it, their handwriting became similar to his handwriting. Now comes the merchant or the beginning collector, who wants to purchase the manuscript of Maran the Chatam Sofer, and he needs an identification, an accurate decipherment and someone to confirm the identity of the manuscript.

A well-known joke to practitioners in the field of Judaica, talks about one of the decipherers of the manuscripts who firmly claims that he knows the manuscript of the Chatam Sofer much better than the Chatam Sofer himself…

Rabbi Yehuda Brayer of Jerusalem and the experts of the leading auction house ‘Tiferet’, invest strength and energy, resources, and countless hours of concentration to identify, diagnose, compare and decipher every important manuscript that comes to their desk, and their professional and reliable name is known as identifiers and diagnosticians of rabbinical manuscripts, and accurate decipherers and experts.

Regarding the Tzemach Tzedek from Lubavitch, for example, identification becomes much more difficult. His students and followers of the Tzemach Tzedek sat and labored for hours and days to accurately imitate their rabbi’s handwriting. They tried and even succeeded, and the work of deciphering the exact handwriting, whether of the Rebbe or of one of the writers of his Torah, is one of the most difficult jobs in the field.

 In the last generation, the Chazon Ish’s family and students imitated the wording of his letters and some also tried to imitate his own handwriting, with considerable success.

“This is the core of our activity at the “Tiferet“ auction house: to identify and decipher manuscripts, so that there will be no mistakes or misdiagnoses,” explains the founder, man of vision, and curator, Rabbi Yehuda Brayer.

Our decoding experts, who are historians, experts in manuscripts, Torah scholars and people of extensive knowledge, can sit for weeks in front of a manuscript, so much so that even in the middle of the night they can accurately describe to you every line and every entry, every phrase and every unique wording in the letter or manuscript, and sometimes it is a matter of hundreds of pages of a manuscript or a tiny piece of paper – each one with its own challenge.”

We started, at the Tiferet auction house, to prepare a huge database of manuscripts that had accumulated under our hands, with all the conclusions and all the research we did on them, a database that will help us in the future to identify manuscripts and be much more precise and clear.

After we started accumulating many thousands of manuscripts, we thought, why are we to be the only ones enjoying it? The database can be useful to anyone who is beginning their journey in antiquities, anyone who is unsure about a manuscript or letter of a certain rabbi, can contact us and we will check in the database, we will identify the handwriting of this rabbi, in his youth, in his older days, in rush or in a calm manner, and thus we will compare and diagnose – and the collector or dealer will be able to know the full value and worth of the manuscript in his or her possession.

Then artificial intelligence burst into our lives.

Like the rest of the world, we stand astonished seeing its amazing abilities to help artisans, graphic designers, and other fields similar to the field of identifying ancient manuscripts.

We realized that we could make use of the technology of the future – even in what seems to be the farthest from it, the oldest works.

Our branch of Judaica and antiquities, so exciting, so ancient, mysterious and mystical, can also be helped by the technology of the future.

Brayer continues and infects us with his enthusiasm: “I will give you an example. A few years ago, a pipe came to our office that is said to belong to the holy Maran HaBaal Shem Tov himself. The first thing we did – at the same time as clarifying the family attribution and finding the most accurate and reliable sources for this important attribution, at the very same time, we sent the pipe to a research laboratory that took a small sample from it to identify the material itself which is indeed at least 250 years old.

We did the same with a Torah scroll that came to us, we immediately sent a researcher of the customs of writing Torah scrolls in past generations, who verified and ascertained precisely that this Torah scroll was indeed written in the exact period and in the land that matched the attribution – the Torah scroll of the Rebbe of Parshischa.

Now we wish – with the help of future technology – to make a kind of research laboratory like this on manuscripts too.

Although people’s handwriting changes a little or a lot during their lives, there are unique characteristics that hardly change, especially in people’s middle years – between the ages of about 22 to around 60.

Our ambition is that the huge database of Tiferet, which is constantly growing by leaps and bounds, will be fed and integrated into advanced software that knows how to characterize and identify manuscripts. This will make it easier for researchers, decipherers, traders, or ordinary buyers all over the world.

We are now only in the early stages of this revolution, but it will come without a doubt, and when it comes and is made useful, it will bring forward the world of Judaica and manuscripts of our rabbis – in an unimaginable way.

Rabbi Brayer is a man of vision and plans, but don’t mistake him for a moment. Practicality is connected in his soul with the vision, and as Tiferet under his leadership introduced new and high standards in Judaica, in the identification and presentation of the items and description of their writing, in the identification of renowned and important manuscripts that for years stood unrecognized,

Just as with his vision Rabbi Yehuda Brayer established Tiferet and brought it to the forefront of the world of antiquities with G-d’s aid, being the leading and most reliable auction house and one of the largest in the world, trust him and  artificial intelligence that with Siyata Dishmia, this database will also become something that in the future we will say in disbelief: how in the recent past did researchers manage the distant past – without the technology of the future‘.

Contact us: [email protected]