(bright cheery music)
Welcome to "Hadley Presents."
I'm your host, Ricky Enger, inviting you to sit back, relax,
and enjoy a conversation with the experts.
In this episode, Hadley's chief program officer, Ed Haynes,
interviews Rabbi Lenny Sarko, sharing his braille journey,
including the creation of a Sefer Torah.
Welcome to the show, both of you.
Thank you. Thanks, Ricky.
This is gonna be really interesting.
Yeah, I agree.
It's so great to have you both here
and even better to have the opportunity
to discuss braille.
Braille is always fun to talk about.
This story in particular, I think is one of the coolest.
I'm really looking forward to learning a bit more about you,
Rabbi Lenny, what you've done, not only learning braille,
but creating the Sefer Torah in braille.
Before we jump into the questions that Ed has
and start to just explore the story,
why don't we get a quick intro from each of you.
Ed, we'll take you first.
I know you've been on the program several times before,
so just a sentence or two about who you are
and what you do at Hadley?
Sure, thanks Ricky. I'm Ed Haynes,
and I'm the Chief Program officer here at Hadley.
Excellent. And Rabbi Lenny, how about you?
Thanks, Ricky.
Again, this is Rabbi Lenny Sarko.
I am a leader of a congregation just outside of Pittsburgh.
I have entered the realm of the visually impaired
about six or seven years ago,
through an issue of bleeding within my eyes,
as a result of diabetes, which led me, initially, to Hadley,
where I learned some English braille,
and as a rabbi, that led me eventually to Hebrew braille,
and eventually to this over six year journey
in the creation of a Hebrew braille Sefer Torah.
Fantastic, I can already tell
that your story is going to be an interesting one,
and we're so glad that you found Hadley
and started your braille journey here.
How appropriate is that?
So with that, I think, Ed,
you've got a lot of great questions
and we'll jump right into it.
Thanks. Yeah, I sure do.
Rabbi Lenny, the Sefer Torah is just such an amazing project
and I wanna hear all about it.
But I wonder, before we do that,
just to give it some context,
if you could tell us a little bit
about your own personal journey with braille itself.
I entered the realm of visually impaired,
which has remained about six or seven years ago.
That eventually led me to Hadley because as a rabbi,
reading is such an important part of my life
and allows me to help do my job.
Although I do have some vision left
and I can do some reading,
I really wanted to be able to continue to do what I do,
which led me to Hadley, initially.
Eventually, that led me to the discussion within my job
as to what we do about Hebrew,
and found out that Hebrew braille
was actually invented around 1948, give or take.
There isn't a lot of teaching of Hebrew braille
within the United States.
The Sefer Torah becomes a little bit of a different animal.
But again, Hadley really helped me
quite a bit in the baseline,
the foundation of getting me familiar with
and beginning to use braille.
A lot of my efforts
have been really placed on the Hebrew side,
which is a little bit different in approach
than the English.
There is only un-contracted Hebrew braille.
There is no contracted Hebrew braille.
Certainly that's use becomes exceedingly important
for the blind and visually impaired Jews
that are not only in the US but around the world.
Well, that makes perfect sense.
And you've obviously moved so far beyond
that original goal of just learning to read English braille.
So it's a perfect segue.
If you could now just tell us about your mission
to create this braille Sefer Torah.
Yeah, Sefer Torah really
goes back almost 3000 years
and they developed at that point
a weekly reading of the five books of Moses, we call Torah.
A number of customs grew out of that.
Again, why a weekly congregational reading?
Well, again, books back in those days
were exceedingly rare and expensive.
For Judaism, the Torah itself becomes the baseline
of how we learn to do our religion.
It was critical for everyone that is Jewish
to be able to access that information.
So they developed the idea of doing a weekly reading
where across an entire year
they get through the entire five books of Moses
in a public way.
But then they developed a number of customs
around that public reading.
One was to create a specific scroll for that,
and there were some things around that scroll
that became custom.
For example, a Sefer scroll is 100% organic,
organic from living things.
So the parchment that it's written on
comes from a kosher animal.
It's put on rollers that are wood rollers.
The inks that are typically used in a written scroll
are made from gall nuts and honey.
Secondly, it must be handwritten. It can't be machine done.
There can be no mistakes in the various words
and letters and columns.
And the last, and probably the most critical item,
from a blind perspective, is that it must be read.
It cannot be memorized.
Can't be memorized because
memorization leads towards mistakes.
We don't want mistakes in a Torah, so it must be read.
Blind and visually impaired Jews
are considered 100% full members of the Jewish community.
There is no aristocracy in Judaism.
You don't have to be a rabbi to lead a service.
Anyone can lead a service.
Anyone can read from the Torah, and they do.
It's called an "Aliyah," a high honor to be able to read,
and that is given to anyone who would like it.
Blind Jews, visually impaired Jews,
were never given that aliyah, that honor,
because they couldn't read.
So were they really considered full members?
And as a rabbi, that bothered me.
As somebody who became visually impaired in my sight,
that bothered me.
Now, there was a large number of issues
related to making an initial scroll.
When I did my initial investigation,
I found there were no such thing
as a Hebrew braille scroll in the US.
There were none in Europe, there were none in Israel.
As a rabbi and as a Jewish person,
we tend to question a lot,
and so we start to ask the question why.
And I received a large number of answers,
but every time I broached those questions,
there were answers to those questions.
And so I went on, basically, a six year journey
that eventually developed what became
the world's first Hebrew braille Sefer Torah scroll.
Wow that's amazing.
From what I understand, it's not just the Sefer Torah,
at this point, you've built
an entire non-for-profit organization around this project.
So could you talk a little bit about that as well?
Again, as I approach the project,
we have another issue.
Typically, as Jewish community gets together,
they all put some dollars into a kitty and we buy a scroll.
But Jewish blind and visually impaired
are not in one community.
They're spread throughout the country.
These scrolls are expensive.
To make a written scroll begins around $50,000
and generally heads up towards $100,000.
Even the blind scroll will be in and around $50,000
to make one full five books of Moses.
That also bothered me.
How are we going to get these scrolls
to those that need them?
And so I developed a program, and what's the program?
We put together a nonprofit corporation, a 501-C3,
and we're getting grants
to create as many scrolls as we can.
They're gonna be housed in one area.
Then when a blind or visually impaired person
would like to use them is simply contact me
and I will mail them the scroll.
They'll use it for a week or two and then mail it back.
So their cost is really only the mailing and the insurance,
not the creation of the scroll.
This now becomes economically viable for them
and then accessible to literally any blind
or visually impaired person around the country.
Well, that makes perfect sense.
And I believe you haven't even stopped there.
You've subsequently developed
a Hebrew braille literacy program as well.
As I began my journey to learn
Hebrew braille
and I searched for some help around the country,
it didn't exist.
And so I decided to develop a course
that could be done remotely
that will teach a person who knows English braille
how to read Hebrew Braille.
And what it is, it's a set of workbooks
and the workbooks are sent to the person.
Currently, there is no charge for those workbooks.
When you get a workbook,
it's both in English and Hebrew braille
and also a textual version,
but that text version is far more pictorial,
so that a person that's either a spouse
or a good friend that is there does not need to know Hebrew
and does not need to know braille
and can assist line by line, character by character,
the person going through the workbooks.
And so they can go at their own pace
and learn Hebrew braille enough
to be able to use the Torah scrolls.
Now, it doesn't teach conversational Hebrew,
but it does teach enough
for them to be able to use the scrolls.
You know, I know there are some guidelines
that are involved in the creation of a Sefer Torah,
and you mentioned this earlier,
one of which is it has to be created by hand
and has to be mistake free.
And I'm really fascinated to hear how you accomplish this
because you had to braille it entirely by hand,
mistake free.
That's just really a huge achievement.
Yeah, that was probably the
biggest hurdle of all
in the project.
How do you do this, again, how do you make braille manually?
Everyone knows that's a slate and stylus.
But I don't know about you,
but when I use my typical slate and stylus,
I can't get through a line without making a mistake.
So how do we do this?
How do I make it so that it can be mistake free?
Here's what I eventually came up with.
We're gonna make a slate, but the slate itself
is gonna be the size of an entire column.
Typical column, just in rough numbers,
is roughly two foot by two and a half foot.
It's about 4,000 letters, give or take.
What I do, and again,
a braille dot it only two millimeters in diameter,
a half a millimeter high,
so what I came up with is as following,
can use machines in the preparation of the materials
as long as the letters themselves are hand done.
And so what I did is used what's called a CNC machine,
which is, in essence, is a computerized drill,
and pre-drilled the holes for each of the letters.
In the case of the aleph,
which is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet,
it's a lot like an A in English braille.
It's only dot one.
So in that particular cell, only dot one gets drilled.
In that way, there is no way for me to slip
and go into a different hole
because only that hole exists for that letter.
And I had to do that for every single letter of the Bible.
Now again, why does it take six years initially?
Because, remember, a slate and stylus
is done upside down and backwards.
So what I had to do is take the English,
make sure the Hebrew is all set,
take the Hebrew, put it into the proper sequences,
and a typical column in a standard scroll,
you will have 42 lines of roughly 40 characters per line.
I had to invert it, then I had to take that
and convert it into CNC language
'cause I needed to save the money,
and then give that program to a company,
that has a CNC machine, to drill all 279 columns
for every single letter of the Bible.
The bad part of that is
it took so long to do that particular project.
The good part is as follows.
In a typical scroll, a written scroll,
a scribe will take roughly a year
to a year and a half to make a Torah.
This took six years,
but most of the time was in making the slates.
But now the slates can be used, and again,
I also have matching bottom slates, right?
So you have the bottom slate,
you put a piece of parchment between,
you put in a top slate, they're bolted together
so that the parchment doesn't move, and then it's punched.
But now that the slates are there,
how many more of those columns can I make?
Thousands, yes? Without needing another slate.
So I can actually get down now
to making one of the five books in basically a month.
I can also do it with help,
and a scribe can't really use help
because they have to know Hebrew,
they have to have all sorts of other expertise
to be able to do this.
But who can punch a hole in a slate that's already pre-made?
Anybody.
Again, if we go back to kosher rules,
kosher rules at kosher slaughterhouse, for example,
will hire non-Jewish workers,
as long as there's a Jewish supervisor.
The food is still considered kosher.
So in this particular case, who can I get to help?
Because I lead a congregation,
we have a number of elderly people who are retired.
This is a great project
'cause they can start and stop when they want.
They don't need to know Hebrew,
they don't need to know braille, just hit the holes.
So I can actually reduce the time even further
and actually push a scroll out,
an entire five books anywhere from one to five, six months.
That is just fantastic. That's real ingenuity.
And frankly, my mind is blown
when I think about using a slate to do Hebrew Braille,
and the difference between reading left to right,
there's a lot of differences.
Here's some of the interesting things,
right?
I'd say 99% of the rules I can follow.
Here's one that I can't.
Typical Hebrew is read right to left.
Hebrew braille is actually read left to right,
so I need to put it in left to right.
Why do they do that?
Because again, braille reading needs to be consistent.
And so they don't want somebody
to approach a page in Hebrew and all of a sudden say,
"Which way do I have to go," and all that kind of stuff.
But again, that doesn't really change
the essence of what we have.
Here's another difference,
a typical scroll will be justified
both on the right and left side.
How do they do that?
Typical scroll, they'll take the end of the line
and they'll elongate or squat their letters.
I can't do that. It's gotta be consistent.
I get to the end of a line, if I can't fit the word,
it just goes to the next line.
Now, interestingly enough,
standard written scroll will run anywhere from
225 to 290 columns.
It takes me 239 to create a scroll.
It's not like a braille book
where it's like five times the size.
It's no bigger or smaller than a regular scroll.
In a typical scroll, they'll have some interesting,
we'll call it anomalies for no better term.
So for example,
there's a number of letters within the scroll
that are either extra large or extra small.
Again, I can't change my size, but here's what I can do,
there is no six dot Hebrew letter.
If I have a extra small letter in a particular word,
it will be preceded by a six dot cell.
If it's extra large, two six dot cells.
That tells the reader it's extra large or extra small.
Also, there's some really interesting spacing issues.
So for example, if you get to the end,
there's something called haazinu,
the song of Moses, the poem of Moses,
and it's in a very poetic spacing,
but I can actually repeat that spacing
in the braille scroll without any problem.
Same thing with other areas
that are like that throughout the scroll.
So for example, when you get to the 10 Commandments,
that's spaced a little bit differently,
I can match that same spacing in the braille scroll.
I had another question about
some differences in guidelines too,
that it's more related to reading
than actually the creation of the scroll.
And I'm aware that traditionally,
people who read from the Sefer Torah,
they don't actually touch the manuscript.
So I'm assuming there's an exception
that's made for braille readers.
The lack of touching is not a,
what they call a halakha, a legal precept, but a custom.
The inks in a written scroll is organic.
Eventually you're going to start to smear 'em,
damage them because of the oils or dirt from your fingers.
So typically in a written scroll,
they use what's called a yad, which is a pointer,
and even some people who take the pointer,
you're not really supposed to touch the letters.
You're supposed to follow it above.
But it's not a legalistic rule, it's a custom
because we don't wanna damage the scrolls.
In the braille scroll, you wanna touch it
because it's strictly by feel.
As long as you don't start pressing the dots
like a bubble wrap, you're good to go.
That does bring to mind a question for me,
which is,
is the parchment that you use
the same as you would use for a printed scroll?
Because sometimes braille dots, you know,
not show up as well or feel a bit fainter
on some paper than others,
and so do you use that same parchment?
Great question, Ricky. Yes.
Here's one, it was one of those questions
that I got at the beginning of the project.
How will braille take to parchment, right?
'Cause we know on paper, you can't use regular paper,
you use almost a card stock, right, for braille writing.
One of the comments that I got back
from all the various ones I got is, well,
the braille will never hold up against the parchment,
and even if it does initially, remember,
what do we do with these scrolls?
It's two rollers, right?
So we're gonna roll up the parchment
back and forth, back and forth.
Well, that squished the dots.
Well, it turns out, we use cow hide for parchment,
it turns out cow hide is both very strong,
but also very flexible.
The cow hide takes the braille dots very nicely, thank you.
And because it's tough, even when you roll it,
it does not damage the dots.
I have rolled test dots on test scrolls
and it never affected the dots.
So the parchment that I use is the exact same parchment,
and I get it from the exact same places
that the written scrolls come from.
The Torah rollers,
same place that they get theirs, I get mine.
There is absolutely no difference in materials used
except that I create dots and they put inks on,
but the parchment itself is exactly the same.
That's fantastic. It was meant to happen, obviously.
So finally, most important question, I suppose,
is if you could tell our listeners
how they could participate in your program
and how they could request the Sefer Torah
to read in their own synagogues.
How many Jewish blind and visually impaired
are there in the United States?
Turns out there's around 200,000 blind
and a little over 200,000 visually impaired.
So that's over 400,000 people in the US alone.
And again, remember this is Hebrew,
so it can be theoretically used anywhere around the world.
The easiest way to contact me
is probably through the website.
I have my email and phone number there.
The website for the project is www.Devarim,
D and in dog, E-V, as in Victor,
A-R-I-M, as in Mary, dot org.
And if you just hit the little contact button,
you'll see all sorts of ways to write me,
to email me, to call me.
For those that are visually impaired or partially sighted
or sighted that is interested,
there's pictures of the braille stroll
on that site that you can see
and a description of the projects as well.
Excellent, and of course,
we will have that link in our show notes
for everybody listening.
It's been just amazing hearing your ingenuity
and your passion for this project.
And six years seems like a very long time.
I would imagine that all that time you put into this
is well worth it, both for you and for others
who are interested in learning Hebrew braille,
and in reading the Sefer Torah.
And might I just interrupt and
do one more comment,
because I think it's an important comment,
for me especially as a rabbi.
You know, this stuff doesn't only help
those who are blind or visually impaired,
but those that have already used the scroll
and I've gone there and participated in their congregations,
their congregations, their families, their friends,
the entire community that they're there
will show up on that day, and the pride, and the happiness,
and the joy not only emanates
from the person doing the reading, but the entire community,
becomes a real lift for everybody.
It's just a real positive experience all the way around.
Yes, thank you for sharing that. That's amazing.
And also, of course, thank you for stopping by
and just sharing your story.
This has been so fascinating.
Yeah, and I wanna thank again Hadley
for all their help to me in the past.
I probably couldn't have gotten to this point without them.
We're certainly glad to have you. Thank you.
Thank you. Or as they say in Hebrew, shalom.
Got something to say?
Share your thoughts about this episode of "Hadley Presents,"
or make suggestions for future episodes.
We'd love to hear from you.
Send us an email at Podcast@Hadley.edu.
That's P-O-D-C-A-S-T at Hadley.edu.
Or leave us a message at 847-784-2870.
Thanks for listening. (gentle music)