As Steve Lipman wrote in The Jewish Week,
While the exhibition closes Aug. 3, the robot, reprogrammed with the help of an Israeli graphic designer, will be on display the rest of the year. The robot writes the sefer Torah exactingly slowly, from right to left, 10 hours a day.(A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS: THE VIDEO MAY NOT BE VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY ON SOME COMPUTERS AND TABLETS. YOU MUST CLICK ON THE TITLE AT THE TOP OF THE EMAIL TO REACH THE JEWISH HUMOR CENTRAL WEBSITE, FROM WHICH YOU CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON IN THE VIDEO IMAGE TO START THE VIDEO.)
A human scribe takes a year or more to complete a scroll.
“While the Sofer [Torah scribe] guarantees the sanctity of the Scripture, the installation highlights its industrial reproducibility,” the website of the Jewish Museum (jmberlin.de) states.
The finished product of the robot, fashioned by a writing arm attached to a small nib, will not be kosher according to traditional Jewish law; it will not be acceptable for use in a synagogue, since it is not being penned by a human hand, and is on a 260-foot-long roll of paper, not on parchment.
Posts
If we could make so much progress w/ world peace. For all our wonderful inventions, & they are spectacular, the one thing we seem unable to manufacture is peace among mankind.
ReplyDeleteDear Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteThat's the beauty & pain of 'Being Created in G-d's Image.' We have free choice to do good or the opposite. We are not robots. Were someone to ask: " Why cannot a robot written 'Torah' be 'Kosher,' 'Acceptable?' It seems silly to say it's not 'Fitting.'" My answer is that how would you like a convicted violent, repeat, felon give you moral advice on how to live your life? He's reading from a great book by a famous, peace-loving physician & author, and this felon's English is superb.