388. "Open," "Closed," "Full" and "Deficient"

Tefillin, Mezuzah v’Sefer Torah 2:2

One must be careful when writing tefillin. If one wrote a section “open” when it should be “closed” or vice versa, the tefillin are invalid. The first three must be written “open,” the last one must be written “closed.”

[Editor’s note: “Open” means that the section must always be written at the beginning of the line; “closed” means that the first word of the section must be written in the middle of the line.]

Tefillin, Mezuzah v’Sefer Torah 2:3

One must also be careful with words that can be written “full” or “deficient.” (See note below.) Words in tefillin must be written the same as they are in a sefer Torah. If one writes a “deficient” word “full,” it is invalid until he erases the extra letter. If one writes a “full” word “deficient,” it is invalid and cannot be fixed. The next four halachos (2:4 through 2:7) will specify which words must be written “full” and which “deficient.”

[Editor’s note: “Full” (malei) means including an “optional” letter vav or yud as part of a vowel; “deficient” (chaseir) means lacking that letter. For example, the name Yaakov is normally spelled deficient: yud-ayin-kuf-veis. On rare occasion, it is spelled full: yud-ayin-kuf-vav-veis.]