Miniature Torah scroll. Europe, ca. mid-19th century.
Ink on thin, high-quality parchment. Silver, turned, repoussé and soldered. Cloth mantle, embroidered with silver threads.
Ashkenazic Stam script (Chassidic Arizal script), in neat, elegant writing (not examined for halachic validity).
Minuscule Torah scroll, one of the smallest miniature Torah scrolls known to us. Written in conformity with halachah, following the Vavei HaAmudim format (most columns beginning with the letter Vav). Membranes correctly sewn together with sinews.
Written on 45 thin parchment membranes, 42 lines per column.
Wound on a pair of miniature rollers, with silver decorations and silver handles (bearing minute crown-like decorations at heads).
The Torah scroll is placed in a minute mantle, decorated with silver embroidery and patterned fabric ribbons.
Minuscule Torah scrolls such as the present one are exceedingly rare, due in part to the complexity of scribing them and the great cost entailed. Such scrolls were usually scribed for exceptionally wealthy people, such as Sir Moses Montefiore who would bring a Torah scroll along with him on his travels around the world. Likewise, such scrolls were prepared as gifts for prominent rebbes, so that they could easily carry them around, as mandated for Jewish kings (see Sanhedrin 21a-22a).
Height of parchment: 6.8 cm. Maximum height including rollers: 14 cm. Height of mantle: 11 cm. Good condition. Stains and fading of ink. Defects and fractures to "crowns" at heads of rollers.
A Torah Scroll Like an Amulet
The Talmud (Sanhedrin 22a) states that a Jewish king requires two Torah scrolls – "one that leaves and enters with him, and one placed in his treasury. The one that leaves and enters with him is made like an amulet and hung on his arm, as it is written, 'I place the Lord before me always'". Rashi explains that the portable Torah scroll is small, made with thin parchment, and easy to carry.
The Minchat Elazar of Munkacs is said to have lived the hope for the Messiah with his entire being. Each night, he would cry for the exile of the Divine Presence and beseech G-d for the redemption of the Jewish people. In 1926, he hired a Sofer famous for his fear of G-d to write him a particularly small Torah scroll, written on parchment produced from the skin of a deer. In the ceremony celebrating the new Torah scroll, he explained that as a king, the Messiah requires two Torah scrolls, one in his treasury and one to take around with him. He therefore ordered a miniature Torah scroll which could be easily transported, in order to give it as a gift to the Messiah upon his arrival (see: Toldot Rabbeinu, 162; Darchei Chaim VeShalom, Hilchot Stam, 948).
The Ruzhin Chassidic dynasty had the custom to write a small Torah scroll for the Rebbe, in accordance with the law mandating it for a Jewish king. The Boyan dynasty had several such Torah scrolls, attributed to R. Yisrael of Ruzhin and his son R. Avraham Yaakov of Sadigura, which they would use during their travels.
Provenance:
1. Oscar and Regina Gruss Collection, New York.
2. Heirs of the above.
The Oscar and Regina Gruss Collection
In 1939, Oscar and Regina Gruss fled their hometown of Lvov (then part of Poland, now in Ukraine), narrowly escaping the Holocaust, and eventually settling in the United States. In the years following the war, they devoted themselves to assembling one of the finest collections of Jewish ceremonial art in the USA, with a particular focus on silverwork and 19th-century Jewish paintings.
Their collection featured masterpieces by celebrated artists such as Isidor Kaufmann, Moritz Daniel Oppenheim, and Solomon Alexander Hart. Many of these works were generously donated to The Jewish Museum, New York, while others remained within the family. The paintings in this catalogue are being offered at auction for the first time.
For additional items from the collection of Oscar and Regina Gruss in the present catalogue, see lot nos. 133, 144, 147, 153, 154, 204 and 205.
