677. Writing a Single Letter

Shabbos 11:12

If a person took a parchment or something similar and he wrote one letter on it in one city, then he traveled that same day to another city where he wrote another letter on another parchment, he is liable. This is because if the two sheets would be brought together, they could be read together.

Shabbos 11:13

One who writes a single letter is not liable even if that letter stands for an entire word. For example, if a person wrote the letter mem and it was clear from context that it stood for “maaser,” or if he wrote the letter in a place where a number is called for so that the letter mem is the same as the word “forty,” he is not liable. If a person was checking a letter and divided it into two letters, he is liable. An example of this is if he divided the lines connecting a ches and made it into letters zayin. [As noted in halacha 11:11, in the script used in writing a sefer Torah, the letter ches is formed by connecting two letters zayin.] This is true in all similar situations.