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The following is from Rav Schwab on Prayer pages 358 - 359:</div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><i>Talmud Torah</i></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">: The way we learn Torah Shebe'al Peh today is not the optimal</span>
<div><span style="font-size: 14pt;">way of doing so. Nowadays even the most outstanding gaon who learns</span></div>
<div><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Torah uses sefarim. He has access to printed Shas Bavli and Yerushalmi, and</span></div>
<div><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Beis Yosef, Tur, Rambam, and thousands of other sefarim. However, ideally.</span></div>
<div><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Torah Shebe'al Peh is intended to be transmitted orally, from teacher to</span></div>
<div><span style="font-size: 14pt;">student, and then studied orally by the students:
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דברים שבעל פה אי אתה רשאי לאומרן בכתב
<div><span style="font-size: 14pt;">( Gittin 60b ). The use of sefarim as a means of learning Torah was</span></div>
<div><span style="font-size: 14pt;">instituted as an emergency measure by Rabbeinu HaKadosh when he compiled</span></div>
<div><span style="font-size: 14pt;">the Mishnah, so that the Torah would not be forgotten. He based his</span></div>
<div><span style="font-size: 14pt;">ruling on the pasuk: When it was time to act in</span></div>
<div><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Hashem's Name, they voided Your Torah (Tehillim 119:126). Following the</span></div>
<div><span style="font-size: 14pt;">lead of Rabbeinu HaKadosh, eventually all of Torah Shebe'al Peh was reduced</span></div>
<div><span style="font-size: 14pt;">to writing.</span></div>
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</span></div>
<div><span style="font-size: 14pt;">However, when Mashiach comes, the Shas and other printed sefarim will
<div>be relegated to the museums, and the original - and ideal - system of</div>
<div>learning Torah Shebe'al Peh orally will be reinstituted. For now, Torah</div>
<div>learning from written sefarim is only a temporary measure, a "marker," to</div>
<div>stay the course, and keep us familiar with the Torah, until bi'as HaMashiach,</div>
<div>when the ideal way of learning be'al peh, orally, will be reinstituted.</div>
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<div>Interestingly, the printing press, on which the propagation of Torah</div>
<div>among the Jewish people has depended so heavily for the past 500 years,</div>
<div>was invented by a non-Jew named Gutenberg, from the City of Mainz in</div>
<div>Germany. This invention was really a very simple idea, and was in no way</div>
<div>comparable to the great inventions and discoveries of history as, for</div>
<div>instance, the harnessing of electric power. In fact, the Chinese had already</div>
<div>invented printing 1,000 years earlier, but it never reached Europe. Nevertheless,</div>
<div>this simple invention impacted on Jewish life so greatly that without it</div>
<div>Judaism would have come to a standstill. The availability of printing was</div>
immediately seized upon by our people, and some of the earliest printed<br>
</span></div>
<div><span style="font-size: 14pt;">books were Chumash with Rashi and Talmud Bavli. Imagine not having</span>
<div><span style="font-size: 14pt;">printed Gemaras, and having to refer to a few handwritten copies, with Rashi</span></div>
<div><span style="font-size: 14pt;">in a separate "Kuntreis, " or notebook. If a person had ten children, he would</span></div>
<div><span style="font-size: 14pt;">have to write ten copies of the Shas by hand to enable his children to learn.</span></div>
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</span></div>
<div><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Why did HaKadosh Baruch Hu not give the zechus of inventing this means</span></div>
<div><span style="font-size: 14pt;">of propagating the Torah among our people to a Jew, rather than to Gutenberg?</span></div>
<div><span style="font-size: 14pt;">The reason is because learning Torah Sheb'al Peh from a written book</span></div>
<div><span style="font-size: 14pt;">is not the ideal way of doing so. It is only an emergency measure, which was</span></div>
<div><span style="font-size: 14pt;">necessitated in galus, to insure that Torah would not be forgotten. For</span></div>
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">now, our method of learning mitoch hak'sav is only a "road marker" until</span></div>
<div><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Mashiach comes, when the ideal method of learning Torah Sheb'al Peh<br>
orally will be reinstituted.</span></div>
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<div><span style="font-size: 14pt;">YL</span><br>
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