Nitzavim-Vayelech: literacy

 

Nitzavim-Vayelech: literacy

This week, I saw a video clip of my eldest grandson, Theodore Irwin Goldberg (whom I call Srulik) learning to read.  He sounded out S A M  S A T. A significant beginning. The next generation is inducted into the written world.

These parshioth are about the establishment of a legacy for the contract between Gd an Israel. The parsha ends with Moshe completing the written document

וַיְהִ֣י ׀ כְּכַלּ֣וֹת מֹשֶׁ֗ה לִכְתֹּ֛ב אֶת־דִּבְרֵ֥י הַתּוֹרָֽה־הַזֹּ֖את עַל־סֵ֑פֶר עַ֖ד תֻּמָּֽם׃

When Moses had put down in writing the words of this Teaching to the very end.

The parsha begins by describing the great assembly receiving Moshe’s parting words. It includes the nobles and the lowliest servants and it goes on to include “וְאֵ֨ת אֲשֶׁ֥ר אֵינֶ֛נּוּ פֹּ֖ה עִמָּ֥נוּ הַיּֽוֹם׃”  those who are not with us here this day.

Rashi comments:  וְאַף עִם דּוֹרוֹת הָעֲתִידִים לִהְיוֹת:  which Sefaria renders: i.e. with the generations that will be in future. The standard Medieval commentators all say that this statement comes to include future generations. This is to be a tradition and the text is its testimony. Reading is the access.

The written word has an undulating history. Socrates was not in favor of writing. In the dialogues of Plato, Socrates ( presented as Thamus) argues that writing will actually lead to forgetfulness because people will rely on written texts instead of their own memory. Socrates believed that true knowledge comes from direct, interactive dialogue, where ideas can be questioned and examined in real-time.

The Mishna and the Talmud are called the oral law. Initially, these ideas were  transmitted by memorization, outside the written world. To an extent the ban on writing the Oral Law may have shared some of the principles attributed to Socrates. Writing the Mishna before its time would have compromised it. In practice, we can see how the absence of a fixed text allowed the circumstances of the time to adapt the law .  The unwritten is more malleable.

Reading opens a world that, until recently, had  been controlled by the owners of printing presses. They printed what they considered valuable or profitable. The publisher could manipulate the perception of truth and value; the publishers could suppress what they considered seditious.

The development of the mimeograph (1874)  allowed individuals and groups, with sufficient will, to publicize views to a limited audience. It broke the publisher’s monopoly on truth and value.  The internet opened information transfer to the full range of possibilities. Anyone, no matter how competent, no matter how careful, no matter how mentally ill, could relatively easily broadcast an opinion or a truth. The written lost its official backing.

In the world of science, a structure of authority was preserved (to an extent) by attributing reliability to peer review and preserving the stature of print journals when they went online. However, the emergence of industry sponsored journals and articles that are really advertisements has made me more skeptical, regardless of the purported editorial policy of the publication.

The ability to slant the truth is blatantly expressed in American “News” Wounding terrorist operatives, identified by pagers assigned only to them, is called a war crime.  They are identified as people, presumably civilians. They are not; and the New York Times knows it.  But the Times controls a very large and powerful press. To me, their power is greatly diminished by their word choice.

Ultimately, I have a small amount of ambivalence about my grandson learning to read. I do not think society has ever properly adapted to the written word. Its origin as an expensive (parchment, scribe, ink)  and exclusive skill gave it a gravity that lasted into the future, to those who are not with us here this day. The strictness of interpretation may have violated its intention. Is the law meant to preserve the original intention or should it be read to maximize the benefit for all. What was the second amendment to the US constitution really about?

I like the Jewish tradition of a written law, an immutable law ( at least some of it written in stone); and an oral law of interpretation, opinion and limited flexibility.  One who enters the sea of words needs a life raft.