Megila daf 2b
Why were the yidden confused if the ender menatzpach letters were at the end or in the middle, they are called pesuchos and setumos and they are shaped like pesuchos and setumos (mem and tzaddik for example) you have these really long ender letters like ender chof and ender pay which clearly belong at the end of of word and not in the middle, so isn't obvious that the pesuchos are in the middle and the setumos are at the end?
Avrumi Hersh, London england
1) The Chidushei Chasam Sofer here asks why does the Gemara say that they did not know if the letters were in the middle of the word or the end of the word? Why did they not have a doubt whether or not they are at the beginning of the word? The Chasam Sofer answers that we must say that it was obvious to them that they were not at the beginning of the word. We can say, like you argue, Avrumi, that this was obvious because the Setumos are so long that they could not be at the beginning of the word, but it was still possible that they might be in the middle.
2) We may say, bs'd, another answer based on the Ritva here.
The Ritva cites Sanhedrin 21b where there is an opinion that the Torah was given on Har Sinai in "Ivri," Hebrew, writing. Afterwards, in the time of Ezra, when they came back to Eretz Yisrael and built the second Beis ha'Mikdash, Ezra enacted that the Torah be written in Ashuri writing, which is the writing we have nowadays in a Sefer Torah. The Ritva says that the Shnei Luchos ha'Bris themselves were given from the start in Ashuri writing, but because this writing was so holy it was never actually used, and when the Luchos ha'Bris were hidden away in the time of King Yoshiyahu, the Ashuri writing was never seen at all by anyone, and as a result it became totally forgotten by the people. Later on, when Ezra returned to Eretz Yisrael, he changed the writing of a Sefer Torah so that the entire Sefer Torah should now be written in Ashuri. But they did not know which letters came at the end of the word and which letters came at the beginning, since Ksav Ashuri had been unknown to them for so many hundreds of years.
According to this, the Jews were confused which of the Menatzpach letters were at the end of the word and which were in the middle, simply because they did not know what the letters looked like.
3) We find sometimes in Nach that Setumos are in the middle of the word and Pesuchos are at the end of the word, so it is not obvious that Pesuchos are in the middle and Setumos at the end. See Yeshayahu 9:6, where the Mem in the middle of the word "l'Marbeh" is a Sesumah, as the Gemara in Sanhedrin 94a points out. See also Iyov 38:1, where the word "Min" has a Pesucha at the end of the word.
Dovid Bloom