Symmetrically Designed Sifrei Torah: A Quantitative Analysis - Hakirah

Symmetrically Designed Sifrei Torah: A Quantitative Analysis : 213
S”T to have an integer number of pages between 120 and 140 in
length (i.e. it should be relatively similar to the one made by having
46 verses per page), it must be constructed on the basis of having
304,800 or 304,799 letters.
Case
Table 7
Scenarios for an Equal-Number-of-Letters-Per-Page S”T
Total #
of
Letters
גחון of וו
Actual Middle
Letter
Page Location 67
Total #
of Pages
Letters
Per Page 66 Page Location
1 304,800 120 2540 61.90 60.00
2 304,800 127 2400 65.51 63.50
3 304,799 121 2519 62.42 60.50
Because letters are parts of words, this design is slightly
different from the equal-number-of-verses design in that not every
page will have the number of letters listed in the 4 th column. For
example, suppose in Case 1, which is designed to have 2,540 letters,
the 2,539 th letter on a page is the last letter of a word and the 2,540 th
letter is the first letter of a 5-letter word. In this case, the 5-letter
word can be continued on the same page, which will have 2,544
letters; or start the next page, and the current page will have 2,539
letters. Thus positioning rules 68 are necessary on the sofer’s part.
However, the design will easily accommodate several extra/fewer
letters per page without being visually different. Similarly, even
though a S”T has more letters than indicated in the second column,
the few extra letters are easily accommodated.
In comparing the 3 scenarios of Table 7, the only one that
has the וו of גחון in a distinctive position on a page is Case 2, which is
.01 from the exact middle of the page. Although .01 of a page is
66 I.e. the second column divided by the third column gives the fourth
column.
67 If the total number of pages is N, the number in this column is N/2. If
N is even (e.g. 120), N/2 (60.00) means after the end of N pages (i.e.
bottom of page 60 or top of page 61). If N is odd (e.g. 127) then N/2
(63.5) refers to the middle of the page (middle of page 64).
68 E.g. no less than 2,535 letters to a page and no more than 2,545. These
rules would be very similar to those given in Hilchos Sefer Torah 7:6-7.