[Avodah] Cheder Study, Knowledge of Torah, and the Maintenance of Social Stratification

[Micha Berger]

On Sun, Jun 24, 2012 at 09:24:17AM -0400, Prof. Levine quoted R/Dr Saul
Stampfer:
> [41]  The contemporary phenomenon of Talmud commentaries, such as that of 
> Rabbi Steinsaltz
> or the Artscroll commentaries which are in the vernacular and which  
> require no major
> investment of effort to understand, did not have an equivalent in  
> eastern Europe. This was not
> because of any inability to write such a commentary or lack of printing 
> shops to print one. Popularization
> of the Talmud or making it more accessible went against the grain of  
> traditional Jewish
> society. It will be interesting to see what the long-term impact of  
> these commentaries will
> be - whether they will spread knowledge or lead to functional illiteracy 
> in Hebrew and Aramaic.

The question is which we take as the more significant data point, R'
Yisrael Salanter's drive to have easy Hebrew (for those of the masses
who were influenced by Maskilim) and German (for those more enamored
of university than Jewish education) translations of the gemara, or his
failure to accomplish it. He did show such interest, but:

1- This was in RYS's Prussian period, he might not have intended it
for East European audiences; and

2- The lack of success may be attributable to others not sharing the
dream.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Live as if you were living already for the
micha at aishdas.org        second time and as if you had acted the first
http://www.aishdas.org   time as wrongly as you are about to act now!
Fax: (270) 514-1507            - Victor Frankl, Man's search for Meaning