When I see an article with the headline "New Tech Protects Ancient Torahs," particularly in Wired News, I automatically assume it's going to be about RFID. It's almost refreshing that today's article, on different methods of identifying Torah scolls for theft recovery, doesn't mention the little tags at all-- though it does point out some interesting challenges in identifying objects.
There's a big international market in stolen religious artifacts. Much of the traffic is aimed at museums or private collectors, but there's also a market that aims to sell valuable but workaday items to clerics. Within this world, Torahs are attractive targets for two reasons: standardization and anonymity. They're always written in the same language; the same scroll can be used by any congregation, anywhere. Further,
Torah scrolls are inherently anonymous. Jewish law dictates that not one character can be added to the 304,805 letters of the Torah's text. That means no "property of" stamps, no serial numbers, no visible identifying marks of any kind.
This obviously creates a challenge. How can you identify something that can't be modified?
There are currently two systems that try to solve this problem. The Universal Torah Registry, solves it by modifying each scroll just a tiny bit: "eight holes arranged so their position relative to one another describes a unique identification number in a proprietary code."
A rabbi uses the template [generated by UTS] to perforate the coded pattern into the margins of the scroll with a tiny needle. To keep an enterprising thief from swapping the perforated segment with a section from another stolen scroll in some kind of twisted Torah chop shop, the registry recommends applying the code to 10 different segments of the scroll....
The system is legal under a rabbinical ruling issued in the 1980s that says it's kosher to make small perforations in a Torah. "Punctures are already used to sew different panels of the parchment together," explains Rabbi [Geoffrey] Haber.
The second system, Machon Ot's International Torah Registry, "takes advantage of the handcrafted nature of the Torahs:"
Under Judaic law, a new Torah must be meticulously copied from an existing scroll by a trained scribe, who pronounces each Hebrew letter aloud -- for accuracy -- before writing it on squares of animal skin. The pieces are later sewn together and reeled onto giant wooden rollers....
But while every scroll is the same, each scroll is also unique:
Though the content is always the same, the position of the lettering varies from scroll to scroll, making each Torah as individual as a halachic snowflake. By measuring the distances between letters at certain standardized points, and entering them into a computer program, Machon Ot generates a 20-digit number that uniquely identifies each Torah.
Content and media are harder to separate than we think. This is true for centuries-old, handwritten texts; but it's also true for information technology.
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