Can we buy a Sefer Torah and keep it in our house?

 

Question:

We want to know what is the halacha for a family who wants to buy a Sefer Torah and wants to keep it in their house, not to donate to any shul.

Where we live we cannot do the hachosas sefer Torah in a shul here for various reasons which we don’t want to discuss now. But we need to know the halacha: if we are not donating it to a shul, do we have to make a hachnosas sefer Torah?

What is the minimum requirement?

A sofer was hired by the family to write the sefer Torah. So what is the absolute necessity and must be done when the sefer Torah is completed? and what is simply custom that could be waived in this case?

Thank you.

 

Answer:

At the very least, there should be a seudas mitzvah with inviting others to celebrate the completion of a new Sefer Torah.

In addition to celebrating the Siyum, there is a minhag to celebrate the Hachnosas Sefer Torah, bringing the new Sefer Torah to a shul.

Dovid Hamelech would dance and clap with all his might in honor of Hashem, before the Aron Habris (ark of covenant). From here we learn the idea of making a celebration when making a Hachnasas Sefer Torah to a shul.

Albeit, this is not an obligation, and one may keep a Sefer Torah in a designated honorable place in one’s home.

Although one can use it for reading the Shnaim Mikrah Va’echad Targum – that is, according to many poskim, there is a hiddur to read the Sidrah from a Sefer Torah one time – the Rebbe writes that our Rebbeim did not do so.

 

 

Sources:

Shmuel II 6:16.

Taz Orach Chaim 285:2. Magen Avraham ibid. 1. Shulchan  Aruch Admur ibid. 4.

Igros Kodesh 16 p.189.Likutei Sichos XXIV p. 214 fn. 59. Sefer Hasichos 5748 I p. 186.

Igros Moshe (Yoreh Deah 1:163 towards the end).

 

 

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