No mistakes in Torah Scroll are admitted. If the congregation finds out a wrong letter during the traditional reading process, the scroll is considered invalid (posul) and has to be returned to the Arch and afterwards brought to a Sofer STAM for check and correction (tikkun). Even one wrong letter - or additional erroneously written letter - makes a Torah Scroll unfit for use. The congregation has to immediately address a sofer; more than thirty days delay would jeopardize their own status against the Jewish Law and the holiness of the Sefer Torah.

     There is quite a number of rules and regulations of the correction of the error in Sefer Torah. Most of the letters can be erased by a knife or a pumice stone. But the name of the Almighty can not be erased. By no means the scribe may diminish the holiness of the Divine name, and erasing it physically from the parchment would be without doubt a serious transgression. In that case, God forbid, the whole eriah has to be cut of the Sefer Torah and buried in a specially designated place, called geniza (holding).



     Geniza is usually a special room in the basement of the synagogue or a specially built contingent building that is used as a holding for any sheet of paper that contains the Name of the Almighty yet that can not be any more used. Sometimes geniza is built at the cemetery or dug in the ground.

     Holy books or Sifrei Torah should be restored by all means, yet if the restoration is no more possible and cost of it exceeds the actual cost of a new Sefer, they should be buried in the geniza. Thus, Sifrei Torah used for hundred years by dozens of generations and unsolvable from the point of view of a professional scribe should be placed in the geniza. However, as a rule the sofer is at pains to save a Sefer Torah applying his utmost technical skills to salvage it through replacements and corrections. According to the most rigorous requirements, a used Sefer Torah checked and repaired by the professional scribe has now less status in terms of Jewish Law than a new one, except for its aesthetic features.

     Jewish history provides us with a variety of examples about Jews being persecuted, massacred or expelled. The World War II is one of the saddest examples of sort. Throughout European territory Torah scrolls were plundered, desecrated and burnt. Those Torah scrolls that were miraculously saved did not excape extensive damages caused by the atrocities of war. Popular mentality dubbed them "Holocaust Toras".

     Mostly these are Central and Eastern European scroll that preserve vivid memory of the human catastrophy. It should become a noble task of the Jewish congregations throughout the world to purchase those Torah scrolls for the didactic purpose and for preservation of historical memory.