Shulchan Arukh Yoreh De'ah · Siman 281

Shulchan Arukh Yoreh De'ah 281 — English translation

Translation: Sefaria Community Translation. Section numbers match the Hebrew text above.

1. 1Who is fit for the writing of a Sefer Torah, and if the scribe says they did not write the names of God for their own sake. Contains 8 subsections. A sefer Torah written by an apikoros should be burnt. A non-Jew, it should be sealed away. Found in the hand of an apikoros and one doesn't know who wrote it, it should be sealed away. Found in the hand of a non-Jew and one doesn't know who wrote it, there are those who rule it fit and there are those who say it should be sealed away. And the community is obligated to purchase it from them at its price or a little more and to seal it away, so that they will not degrade it. And if they want to charge far over its price, we leave it with them. And if it's established that non-Jews disrespect Jewish books, we suspend our argument [on a possibility that] that those books are theirs and they read them.
2. 2A convert who returned to their original religion because of fear is fit to write a Sefer Torah.
3. 3A Sefer Torah that was written by a masor , a slave, a woman, a minor, a Samaritan, a heretical Jew: unfit.
4. 4A Sefer Torah that was written by a mamzer, there are those who rule unfit. (And this is the same for a ger toshav) (Mordechai, end of Halachot Ketanot)
5. 5A Sefer Torah that the scribe said, after it left their hand, "I didn't write the names of God for their own sake": is not believed to render it unfit, but is believed to lose all their wage. And why are they not believed to render it unfit? Lest they were only intending to cause the buyer or the one who paid them a loss, etc., for they wouldn't lose by making the statement anything but the wage for the names of God. Therefore, if they said "This Sefer Torah, its hides are not worked for their sake" - since they're believed to lose their wage, they are believed to render it unfit, since everyone knows that if they are not worked for their sake, they have no wage at all. Rema: And since it is like the wage of a fifth in general, they are obligated to repay a fifth, since this in any case is not less than a fifth. (Mordechai, chapter haNizakin).

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