Symmetrically Designed Sifrei Torah: A Quantitative Analysis - Hakirah

Symmetrically Designed Sifrei Torah: A Quantitative Analysis : 195
ד״ה ובסופו ‏-בסופו מניח חלק גדול כדי לגול בו כל הקיפו שאין עושה
שני עמודים לגול לו לאמצעו כמו שאנו עושים לספר תורה אלא גוללו
מתחילתו לסופו וכורך החלק על כל ההיקף.‏
Rashi explains that unlike our Sifrei Torah, which have wooden
rollers at both ends and are closed by rolling toward the middle, in
prior times 41 there was a single wooden roller at the beginning and
‏(בראשית side- the S”T were closed by rolling the beginning (right
toward the end. Rashi also explains that the side that had no roller
must have a greater amount of blank parchment that wrapped around
the written part when it is rolled up. Tosfos, ועושה ‏,ד״ה disagrees with
Rashi as to which side the roller is placed on a Sefer Torah, i.e. the
single roller was at the end of the Sefer, not the beginning, and that
the empty parchment was at the beginning, not the end. When
exactly did this change from one roller to two rollers take place? We
can perhaps pin the time of the change down based on the following
conflicting three Baraisos:
42
מסכת ספר תורה ב׃ה-…ובתורה לא נתנו שיעור אלא עושה עמוד
בסוף הספר ואינו צריך לעשות כן אלא בתחילתן.‏
מסכת סופרים ב׃ה...מניחין אותו בסוף הדף כדי להקיפו עושה עמוד בסוף
הספר בתחילה כדי להקיפו וא״צ לעשות כן בתחילתו ובתורה מכאן ומכאן
לפיכך גוללין הספר לתחילתו ולתורה לאמצעית.‏
43
41 This is our understanding of Rashi. ArtScroll interprets the phrase in
the second Rashi שאנו עושין לס״ת“‏ ‏”כמו not to differentiate between “us”
(i.e. now) and “them” (i.e. in the past) but between S”T and other
books. According to this view, Rashi never said that any S”T ever had 1
roller. We reject this view because:
• It is not the simple meaning of Rashi’s words.
• Rashi ב״ב יד׃ ד״ה ספר העזרה לתחילתו says that the Sefer Torah
Moshe wrote and that was in the עזרה had but a single roller on
the right.
42 Tosfos ב״ב יג׃ bases part of his disagreement with Rashi on this and
similar Baraisos that seem to say that the roller was at the end of the
Sefer Torah.
43 Several words (e.g. בתחילה ‏,אלא …) in this and the next Baraisa are
problematic. Nevertheless, they clearly demonstrate that at one time a
S”T had one yad and at another time had two.