“Therefore, say – Behold! I give him My covenant of Shalom.” (25:12)
It is customary to write the letter “vav” of the word “shalom” shorter than the surrounding letters. The renowned halachic authority R’ Shlomo Zalman Auerbach z”l (1910-1995) once was shown a Sefer Torah in which the vav had been written the regular size. It should have been a simple matter to take a blade and scrape off the bottom of the vav, but no sofer / scribe could be found in Yerushalayim who was willing to undertake the job. The reason was that there are authorities who hold that the word “Shalom” is a Divine Name. Although the halachah does not follow that view, these scribes were not willing to do an act which, according to some, would constitute erasing G-d’s Name. [For this reason, some authorities counsel not to say “Shabbat Shalom” in a bathroom and not to write the word “Shalom” in correspondence that will be thrown away.]
A difficult predicament? Not for R’ Auerbach. He advised that they bring a quill and ink and thicken the bottoms of all of the other letters of the word Shalom. Once that was done, the vav would be a short letter. Simple, but brilliant.
