Not just our economies and politics, but also our perceptions and the texture and content of our knowledge, are all being reshaped by the changing media. Understanding changes in our own perception is a particularly difficult challenge. It helps to consider analogous historical shifts.
From Speech to Writing
א"ר יהושע בן לוי הדא אגדתא הכותבה אין לו חלק. החורשה מתחרך השומעה אינו מקבל שכר. א"ר יהושע בן לוי אנא מן יומוי לא איסתכלית בספרא דאגדתא אלא חד זמן... אפי' כן אנא מתבעי בליליא.
R. Yehoshua Ben Levi said: One who writes down Aggadah has no portion. One who works it burns himself. One who hears it receives no benefit. R. Yehoshua Ben Levi said: Only once did I look into a book of Aggadah... Even though (it was only once), I am fearful at night.
קרבן העדה שם - אין לו חלק. לעוה"ב שמפר הברית דכתיב כי על פי הדברים האלה
Korban HaEidah loc. cit - Has no portion: In the world to come, since he violates the covenant, as it's written "according to (lit. on the mouth of) these words" (Exodus 34:27)
וַיֹּ֤אמֶר יְהוָה֙ אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֔ה כְּתָב־לְךָ֖ אֶת־הַדְּבָרִ֣ים הָאֵ֑לֶּה כִּ֞י עַל־פִּ֣י ׀ הַדְּבָרִ֣ים הָאֵ֗לֶּה כָּרַ֧תִּי אִתְּךָ֛ בְּרִ֖ית וְאֶת־יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃
And the LORD said to Moses: Write down these commandments, for in accordance with (lit. on the mouth of) these commandments I make a covenant with you and with Israel.
This verse is in the context of the giving of the second tablets. Chazal see a strong distinction and division between the written and the oral Torah. These midrashim understand the division as part of the fabric of the Torah that we have been given, part of God's design.
... אמר ,אי אשכחיה דכתיב איגרתא שלחי ליה לרב יוסף ... ואי הוה ליה איגרתא מי אפשר למישלחא ,והא אמר רבי אבא בריה דרבי חייא בר אבא א"ר יוחנן ,כותבי הלכות כשורף התורה והלמד מהן אינו נוטל שכר ,דרש ר' יהודה בר נחמני מתורגמניה דר"ל ,כתוב אחד אומר (שמות לד, כז) כתוב לך את הדברים האלה וכתוב אחד אומר (שמות לד, כז) כי על פי הדברים האלה לומר לך ,דברים שעל פה אי אתה רשאי לאומרן בכתב ושבכתב אי אתה רשאי לאומרן על פה ,ותנא דבי רבי ישמעאל ,כתוב לך את הדברים האלה אלה אתה כותב אבל אין אתה כותב הלכות ,אמרי ,דלמא מילתא חדתא שאני ,דהא רבי יוחנן ור"ל מעייני בסיפרא דאגדתא בשבתא ודרשי הכי ,(תהלים קיט, קכו) עת לעשות לה' הפרו תורתך ,אמרי ,מוטב תיעקר תורה ואל תשתכח תורה מישראל
He (R. Dimi) said "If I had a messenger, I would have written a letter and sent it to R. Yochanan" ... And if he had a letter, could he have sent it? Didn't R. Hiyya bar Abba say in the name of R. Yohanan: Those who write the halachot are like one who burns the Torah, and he who learns from them receives no reward? R. Yehudah bar Nahmani, the Meturgeman of Resh Lakish, expounded: One verse says: “Write down for yourself these words” (Exodus 34.37) and one verse says, “For according to (al-pi, lit. “by the mouth”) these words” (Exodus 34:37), in order to teach you that matters [transmitted] orally/from memory (al-peh) you are not permitted to recite from writing and those matters that are in writing you are not permitted to recite from memory. And it's taught in the school of R. Ishmael: Scripture says, “Write down for yourself these words” (Exodus 34.37)-- these words you may write but you may not write halakhot (laws). They said: Perhaps a new matter is different? For R. Yohanan and Resh Lakish used to study a book of Aggadah on the Sabbath. And they explained it in this manner: “It is time to act for the Lord, for they have made void Your Torah” (Psalms 119:126), which they explained: It is better that Torah be uprooted than Torah be forgotten in Israel.
R. Yochanan and Resh Lakish, mentioned below, are second generation Amoraim (c. 280 CE) - younger contemporaries of R. Yehoshua Ben Levi, who was a first generation Amora (c. 250 CE). The version of this story in Gittin adds a few seemingly incidental words...
דר' יוחנן ור"ש בן לקיש מעייני בספרא דאגדתא בשבתא והא לא ניתן ליכתב אלא כיון דלא אפשר (תהלים קיט, קכו) עת לעשות לה' הפרו תורתך
For R. Yohanan and Resh Lakish used to study a book of Aggadah on the Sabbath. But that's not allowed to be written!? Since it was not (otherwise) possible, “It is time to act for the Lord, for they have made void Your Torah”
In what way was it impossible to not write things down?
From Writing to Printing
Johannes Gutenberg, a goldsmith by profession, developed, circa 1439, a printing system ... The printing press spread within several decades to over two hundred cities in a dozen European countries. By 1500, printing presses in operation throughout Western Europe had already produced more than twenty million volumes. In the 16th century, with presses spreading further afield, their output rose tenfold to an estimated 150 to 200 million copies. The operation of a press became synonymous with the enterprise of printing, and lent its name to a new medium of expression and communication, "the press".
קולופון מסוף טור אורח חיים, הנדפס בדפוס אברהם כונת בשנת רל״ו
אמר אברהם קטן המשפיעים ותלמיד הרופאים הנסמך זעירא מן חבריא בכמ"ר שלמה כונת זלה"ה הכותב בכמה קולמוסים בלא מעשה נסים, אשר יגע ומצא להרביץ תורה בישראל והשיג זאת המלאכה, לכתוב כהלכה, מערכה ערוכה לקראת מערכה. אלף עמודים בכל יום פעמים באהבה ובלב נדיבה ארבעה עמודים בפעם אחד אשר בצד אחד מן הדף בנייר הגדול וכן הארבעה אשר בצד השני עד שימצא היות כתוב הדף אשר לו ב' דלתות וד' פנים בב' פעמים, וזה מלאכתו כל הימים.
Abraham Conat, Colophon to the Tur, printed in 1476 in Mantua
... Who writes with many quills, without miraculous intervention. Who tried and succeeded to spread Torah among Israel ...
Hayyim ben Bezalel of Friedberg, 16th century (brother of the Maharal)
“Just as a person likes only the food that he prepares for himself, in accordance with his own appetite and taste...thus he does not like another person’s rulings unless he agrees with that person. All the more does he not wish to be dependent upon the books of other authors, whom he does not trust, just as a person likes only the food that he prepares for himself, in accordance with his own appetite and taste, and does not aspire to be a guest at their prepared table. And for that reason the ancients refrained from writing any special book to lay down customs and halakhah to the general public.” (From "The Ashkenazi Elite at the Beginning of the Modern Era: Manuscript versus Printed Book," by Elchanan Reiner, pg. 87)
From Print to Digital
(food for thought)
- Can you recall what it was like to be conscious before you had a phone in your pocket? Before you had seen the web or had an email account?
- Study finds better recall among students who take handwritten notes, as opposed to typed.
- Some ideas from Marshall McLuhan
- "We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us."
- "The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village."
- "The tribalizing power of the new electronic media, the way in which they return us to the unified fields of the old oral cultures, to tribal cohesion and pre-individualist patterns of thought, is little understood. Tribalism is the sense of the deep bond of family, the closed society as the norm of community."
- "Man in the electronic age has no possible environment except the globe and no possible occupation except information-gathering."
Further Reading: Media | Source Sheets from Sefaria