Tefillin “Parshiot” – Written by Rabbi Nathaniel Sofer – Jerusalem

Tefillin “Parshiot” (Torah passages for phylacteries), written by the famous scribe, the righteous Rabbi Nathaniel Sofer (“Tefilliniski”), Jerusalem, [ca.1900’s]. Black ink on minature parchment sheets. “The Tefillin of R’ Nathaniel Sofer” – were acclaimed in the Torah world before the holocaust. Requests came from all over the world to obtain these holy tefillin that the righteous scribe Rabbi Nathaniel Sofer Tefilliniski wrote. Many of the great ones of Israel in his time made efforts to purchase tefillin and mezuzot, the work of Rabbi Nathaniel Sofer, among them R’ Samuel Salant, R’ Haim Berlin, the “Saba from Slabodka”, Rabbi Kook, and many others. It is known that the “Hafetz Haim” made many attempts to obtain these tefillin, and when he received them, he was very much rejoiced. Rabbi Nathaniel Sofer Tefilliniski (1867-1918), an interesting figure of a holy man, one of the great ones of “Etz Haim” Yeshiva, was blessed with a remarkable technical ability and facility for invention. He himself performed all the tasks required for making tefillin, from beginning to end: treating the parchment and the leather for the cases and straps, preparing the ink, the writing, cutting the straps, etc. Writing the “Parshiot” was a task on its own. Rabbi Nathaniel prepared the superior parchment by himself and wrote each letter and tag in holiness and purity, while wrapped in tallit and tefillin and would not interrupt the writing by speaking. Even during the short life of Rabbi Nathaniel Sofer (he passed away at the age of 52), the Tefillin of R’ Nathaniel Sofer, were a rare article, as he was so particular about the work that he produced only a few tefillin. The Rebbe “Minchat Eliezer” from Munkacs tells of the efforts of his father the Rebbe, author of the “Darchei Teshuva to obtain the Tefillin of R’ Nathaniel: "In Jerusalem there is a wonderful artist and I saw his wonderful work, and even in the days of R’ Israel we requested him through representatives to make 'Batim' for us that have may features apart from their beauty, but he did his work very slowly….”. Only a few mezuzot and tefillin Parshiot that Rabbi Nathaniel Sofer wrote remain today and they are remarkable for the special precision in observing the halachot regarding the shapes of the letters and for the especially beautiful handwriting. The special ink that Rabbi Nathaniel Sofer produced remains as when written, fresh and elegant even after a hundred years. The identification of the writing as that of R’ Nathaniel Sofer, has been checked and validated by the leading scribes in Jerusalem. Also evident in the Parshiot are the special features he is known to have used, as R’ Nathaniel Sofer himself wrote on the virtues of his Parshiot :”The letters are counted and measured at the beginning so that they are not enlarged or compressed, and no knife was used on any letter corrected even while writing...The ink was made properly so that it lasts long and does not redden and so not even the tag on the Yod will jump off”. 5 sheets of quality parchment, mostly thin parchment. Height of parchment: 31 mm. The text of the Parshiot were checked by an expert proof reader. According to him: The hand-tefillin parasha is Kosher. There is a suspicion that one of the four Parshiot for the head-tefillin is not Kosher.