I do not have the daf in front of me, so I apologize that I cannot pinpoint.
In the first perek of Kedushin, the gemorah discusses the sofrim who used to count letters and pesukim and there, amoraim have a discussion, and indicated that they were not sure how to divide the pesukim, or which words were maleh or chaser and therefore could not know which letter was the middle of the Torah.
In the Ramban's Hakdomoh to Bereishis, he explains that the Torah is sheimos of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, and that the Torah could be divided up in different combinations etc. He explains that this is why a sefer Torah that is missing letters is pasul, even though maleh./chaser seem not to make a difference in meaning.
Is the Ramban just illustrating a point in the abstract? If the amoraim were already not beki'im which letter were maleh or chaser, then certainly by the time of the Rishonim, they could not be sure. (The question in the gemorrah is to bring a sefer torah and count, so it is not just that they did not know ba'al peh, but that they could not be sure that a kosher Sefer Torah even got it right)
I think that there have also been sifrei Torah found with approx 8 diff. letters from Taiman (???_ not sure about that)
Please explain. Thank you for your help.
Michael Rubin, Brooklyn, New York
This is a big subject and I am not sure I will be able to give a satisfactory answer at the moment, but at least I will try and make a start by mentioning some sources and ideas.
(1) The Shaagas Aryeh #36 writes that he can exempt us nowadays from the Mitzvah of writing a Sefer Torah, on the basis of our Gemara that today we are not expert concerning Maleh and Chaser. A sefer Torah which has one extra or one missing word is invalid.
(2) One sees from the Shaagas Aryeh that he had a similar understanding to the Ramban - even if a letter that does not make any difference to the meaning of the words is missing, the Sefer Torah is still totally invalid. In the same way that S.A. states that there is no Mitzva in the actual writing of a Sefer Torah nowadays, he will also presumably maintain that we have no valid Sifrei Torah now either.
(3) Possibly this is not as surprising as it seems, because see Beis Yosef Orach Chaim 143 DH v'Kosuv who cites a responsum of the Rambam that if there is no valid Sefer Torah available one may read from and say a blessing on an invalid Sefer Torah. (The Rashba writes that the Rambam wrote this teshuva in his youth, but later retracted from it). Tosfos Megilah 9a DH Bishlomo also writes that even if an entire verse is missing from a sefer Torah, one may still read from it. So even though we may not have any valid sifrei Torah now, we can still read from them.
(4) However, see Minchas Chinuch Mitzva 613:3 DH v'Nireh who writes that it is obvious that if the missing or extra letters do not change the meaning at all, this does not harm the sefer Torah at all, and it is totally valid. Note 8 to the Minchas Chinuch points out that this is not consistent with the Ramban.
(5) Note 8 also cites the Meiri, in his book Kiryat Sefer, who writes that when our Gemara states that we are not expert in Maleh and Chaser, this means we are not sufficiently expert to decide which is the correct text in a case of dispute. Otherwise however we do possess expertise.
(6) It is clear that this entire subject requires further research.
Chodesh Tov
Dovid Bloom
Follow-up reply:
Here is a better answer to your question. The answer is that the only thing we can rely upon is our Masores - our tradition concerning what the letters of the Torah are.
(1) But you asked that the Gemara says that we do not know which words are Maleh or Chaser, so our Masores might be wrong and therefore one wrong letter will invalidate the entire Sefer Torah? The Maharam Shik (part 1, Mitzvah 613:2) answers by explaining that the torah always tells us to follow the majority opinion (see Shmos 23:2). Devorim 17:11 states that we must not depart from the Sages to the left or right, and Rashi there explains that even if they tell you that your right hand is your left hand, or the other way round, you must still listen to them. Therefore, concerning the masores also, we follow the majority opinion concerning which is the correct reading, and the majority opinion automatically becomes the certain reading of the Torah, without any doubt.
(2) Maharam Shik 613:3 gives another imaginative answer. He writes that the source of the Halacha that a Sefer torah with a missing or extra letter is from Tehillim 19:8 - "The torah of Hash-m is perfect". This can be compared to an animal which is invalid as a sacrifice in the Temple if it possesses a blemish. Gemara Bechoros 37a states that any blemishes which can be seen clearly invalidate the animal. Similarly a missing or extra letter only invalidates the S.T. if everyone agrees to the error, but if there is a dispute amongst the Sages concerning the correct Masorah, this is not considered to be a revealed blemish, and the S.T. is still valid.
(3) Teshuvas Avnei Nezer Yoreh Deah 356:5 also gives a bold answer. He writes that we do in fact know better nowadays about the letters of the torah than the Amoraim did. This is because one of the Rishonim -Rabbi Meir Abulafia, the "Ramah" (who was before the time of the Rosh) studied thoroughly all the questionable cases of missing and extra letters and wrote clearly in his book "Masores Syag l'Torah" what the correct readings are. According to this, our masores is better than that of the time of the Gemara.
KOL TUV
Dovid Bloom