Memory Loss
You shall also teach them to your sons, speaking of them when you sit in your house, when you walk along the road, when you lie down, and when you get up. Deuteronomy 11:19 NASB
Speaking – It is curious and significant that the Hebrew word for “male” (zākār) comes from the root zākar meaning “think (about), meditate (upon), pay attention (to); remember, recollect; mention, declare, recite, proclaim, invoke, commemorate, accuse, confess.”[1] In my mind, this means God intended the male to remember, recount, and recite His instructions to others, in particular, his children. Moses picks up this theme in his instructions about teaching Torah. You’ll notice that the clarification of “teach them” is “speaking.” Why is this important? Because teaching was an oral process and the recipient was expected to remember, to memorize, what was being taught. Memorization was the standard method of transmission.
What this meant is that human beings cultivated memorization. They practiced it, and like a physical muscle, it became stronger. It took considerable mental energy to memorize the Torah, but it clearly was expected and was accomplished. Then the world changed. Other communication tools were substituted for memorization; tools that we employ ubiquitously today while our memorization capability wanes. This transition has both good and bad consequences. Maimonides’ accomplishment is an example.
Maimonides reorganized the Talmud. Before various passages about any particular idea were scattered all through the work of thousands of pages. Maimonides collected these passages by topic so that each category contained all the thoughts about that particular idea. What an amazing accomplishment in an age when everything was done by hand! But this was a double-edged sword. While it provided easier access to a much wider audience of the thoughts of the Talmudic scholars, at the same time it removed the need for considerable scholarship and diligence in order to appreciate the thoughts in the Talmud. Before Maimonides few people were capable of the work needed to access this material. After Maimonides far more people could access the material, but the requirement was far easier and the quality of the people using the material declined. Before Maimonides you had to be very diligent to understand what the Talmud presented. After Maimonides, much less so. It is the same with translations. Translation makes the text more accessible at the cost of removing the nuances and depths in the original. We recognize this fatal flaw in translations. That’s why we plod through all these grammatical oddities, all this cultural background, all the attention we pay to the author and audience. And we have a lot of help. All the lexicons, grammars, online tools, commentaries, and discussions assist our quest, but even with all that we certainly realize that there are times when we just aren’t up to the task. It’s so much easier to just look in a book (or send me an email asking what I think). Let’s resist, please. My answer is not your answer, and it never can be until you do the work yourself. Faith is perseverance, not just in behavior but also in mental stretching. Keep going. Keep thinking. Just imagine what you might discover.
Topical Index: memory, translation, Maimonides, Talmud, Deuteronomy 11:19
[1] Harris, R. L., Archer, G. L., Jr., & Waltke, B. K. (Eds.). (1999). Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 241). Chicago: Moody Press.
