A tikkun or tiqqun ( he, תיקון) is a book used by

Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""Th ...

s to prepare for reading or writing a

Torah scroll A ( he, סֵפֶר תּוֹרָה; "Book of Torah"; plural: ) or Torah scroll is a handwritten copy of the Torah, meaning the five books of Moses (the first books of the Hebrew Bible). The Torah scroll is mainly used in the ritual of Tora ...

. There are two types of tikkun, a ''tikkun kor'im'' and a ''tikkun soferim''.

Tikkun kor'im

A ''tikkun kor'im'' or ''tiqqun qor'im'' (readers' ''tikkun'') is a study guide used when preparing to chant einthe

Torah reading Torah reading (; ') is a Judaism, Jewish religion, religious tradition that involves the public reading of a set of passages from a Sefer Torah, Torah scroll. The term often refers to the entire ceremony of removing the scroll (or scrolls) fro ...

from the

Torah The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the s ...

in a

synagogue A synagogue, ', 'house of assembly', or ', "house of prayer"; Yiddish: ''shul'', Ladino: or ' (from synagogue); or ', "community". sometimes referred to as shul, and interchangeably used with the word temple, is a Jewish house of worshi ...

. Each tikkun contains two renditions of the

masoretic text The Masoretic Text (MT or 𝕸; he, נֻסָּח הַמָּסוֹרָה, Nūssāḥ Hammāsōrā, lit. 'Text of the Tradition') is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) in Rabbinic Judaism. ...

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

. The right side of each page is written with the

cantillation Cantillation is the ritual chanting of prayers and responses. It often specifically refers to Jewish Hebrew cantillation. Cantillation sometimes refers to diacritics used in texts that are to be chanted in liturgy. Cantillation includes: * Chant ...

marks and vowel points, while the left is written in unpointed Hebrew, as it appears in the actual scroll. People who chant from the Torah must learn the tune and the pronunciation of the words beforehand, as the scroll itself has neither points nor cantillation marks, and because there are places where the word to be read (the ''

Qere Qere and Ketiv, from the Aramaic ''qere'' or ''q're'', ("hat isread") and ''ketiv'', or ''ketib'', ''kethib'', ''kethibh'', ''kethiv'', ("hat iswritten"), also known as "q're uchsiv" or "q're uchtiv," refers to a system for marking differences b ...

'') differs from that written (the ''

Kethib Qere and Ketiv, from the Aramaic ''qere'' or ''q're'', (" hat isread") and ''ketiv'', or ''ketib'', ''kethib'', ''kethibh'', ''kethiv'', (" hat iswritten"), also known as "q're uchsiv" or "q're uchtiv," refers to a system for marking differences ...

'') in the scroll.

Tikkun soferim

A ''tiqqun soferim'' (scribes' ''tikkun'') is similar, but is designed as a guide or model text for scribes writing a copy of the Torah by hand. It contains additional information of use to scribes, such as directions concerning writing particular words, traditions of calligraphic ornamentation, and information about spacing and justification. For instance, it helps the scribe to know how many letters there are per line, so a tikkun soferim gives the size of each line, measured in yud-widths (because yud is the smallest Hebrew letter).

References

Resources

* The Kestenbaum Edition Tikkun: The Torah Reader's Compendium () – Complete ''tikkun'' with pointed Hebrew, unpointed Hebrew, plus English translation and commentary.
Tanakh on Demand
– On-line PDF's in Hebrew of any Torah section, including option for ''tikkun'' format.
Navigating the Bible II
– Online version of the Hebrew Bible, including tikkun format of a few verses at a time, and audio of cantillation.
ScrollScraper
– An online tikkun for an arbitrary excerpt of Torah verses, leveraging the bible.ort.org infrastructure.

– Innovative online 'tikkun', with vowels and cantillation appearing and disappearing with a mouse rollover. Hebrew Bible Jewish prayer and ritual texts Torah reading Sifrei Kodesh {{Hebrew-Bible-stub