 STa"M in Halacha and Midrash At HaSOFER our commitment to teaching about the mitzvot of writing, making and using STa"M, Scrolls, Tefillin, and Mezuzot, goes hand in hand with selling STa"M and Jewish gifts. The extensive international educational projects of our founder Rabbi Moshe Flumenbaum, including frequent lectures in Israel and other countries, newspaper and journal articles and radio interviews, have earned him a worldwide reputation. He also conducts regular tours of the HaSOFER shop which is conveniently located in central Jerusalem. Participants include tourists, students from yeshivot, schools and universities, and local residents. Now you can access online here at www.HaSOFER.com a wealth of information about STa"M. Follow the links at the bottom and left side of this page to learn about the STa"M topic of your choice. Bookmark this page so you can return to it easily to check for new articles that we will be posting periodically. Become an educated kosher consumer! In addition to teaching you about these important mitzvot, we also find it our unfortunate obligation to warn you about the all too common kashrut fraud in the STa"M marketplace worldwide. There are numerous sources of STa"M in Jerusalem, other cities throughout the world and on the Internet. It is often very difficult for the average person to know which items are kosher l'hatchila l'bracha and which of them meet the much stricter standards of kosher l'mehadrin. Even worse, far too many non-kosher STa"M items are for sale very inexpensively in seemingly reputable stores. Sadly, some unscrupulous business owners take advantage of an unlearned public to sell non-kosher products for exaggerated profit. As Rabbi Flumenbaum wrote in a recent newspaper article: "The fraud that goes on is very well documented. The Israeli television consumer program, "Kolbotek," highlighted a scandal in which a branch of the Israeli government purchased hundreds of non-kosher mezuzot for their offices. In the same show it was exposed how hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of amateurs write mezuzot in the US despite the fact that they have no proper training in scribal arts. One individual actually testified that he writes all his mezuzot on Shabbat because it is his only day off from his regular job!" From the articles in this section you can both learn much about these important mitzvot and what to be aware of and wary of as you shop for Scrolls, Tefillin and Mezuzot. If you know about or are suspicious of fraud in the STa"M marketplace, please send us the details to: KashrutAlert@HaSOFER.com. We'll do a thorough investigation and if we find it to be true will publicize it here. And, yes, the Talmud indeed teaches us that G-d wears tefillin. Click on G-d's Tefillin to learn about this fascinating subject and the inspirational interpretation of the Kabala.
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