Oral Knowledge: A Connection from the Jewish People to their Creator
In this story, I show that aural knowledge is the way that Jewish people know God. Through this discussion of aural/oral knowledge in Judaism, I will argue that written word is an evolutionary extension of aural and oral knowledge.
Feld explains using Acoustemology that sound-knowledge is meaningful because of the relations built with them (Feld, 2015, p. 12–13). Aural presence and encounters evolve over time to develop aural knowledge and power. With this, our species, and others, understand our environment better to the point that we are better able to survive in it and then subjugate it. Through the use of oral and aural knowledge, the Jewish leaders harness power and knowledge through sound to facilitate the transmission and perpetuation of their society and culture.
Prohibition of Visual Symbols of God
Menezes Bastos discusses cultural anthropology and how it relates to his study of the Brazilian Tupiani-Guarani-speaking Kamayura Indians (Menezes Bastos, 1999, p. 85). In normal life, understanding is almost impossible to be gained from either seeing or hearing alone, but rather a combination of the two. Menezes Bastos accidentally proves this point by trying to re-create visual-centric language; for example: calling a world-hearing instead of a world-view (Menezes Bastos, 1999, p. 87). In this way, I find the Jewish obsession with oral tradition to be an interesting exception to the rule. Much of this stems from the second commandment “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image…” (Exodus 20:4–6). The rest of the statement is a prohibition of idolatry — creating or praying to any such created image or object. In this way, Islam and Judaism are united in their confused view of Catholic relics and paintings. This prohibition has paved the way for Judaism to be an oral/aural-centric language with a central focus on speech, discussion, reading, and singing as being the way of knowing culture and the way of knowing God.
Brief History of Language and Writing
Let’s take a step back to the survival advantage that is given by hearing, and then hearing knowledge. From the most basic use, hearing can be used to detect prey or predators; its use is coordinated with sight to connect sounds with their causes. Humans can then imitate these sounds or make new sounds and associate them with other environmental ideas. It’s clear that being able to communicate ideas is very good for survival. Survival of organisms is greatly improved if they can predict the future and avoid bad outcomes (Huron, 2006, p. 20–21).
As an aside culture involves all the senses. In a way akin to Hahn’s writing, it’s impossible to learn about a culture by reading, watching, or listening, one must experience it. It’s bizarre for a culture to be lacking its own food, drink, clothing, dance, music, artwork, or writing. Writing has existed for around 5,000 years, but language has existed for over 100,000 years (Hurford, 2014, P. 16, P. 148). This makes sense as writing is an attempt to preserve a temporal knowledge of hearing. Writing has since evolved into a complex artform as seen in academic articles because multiple passes at comprehension are available in a way not possible when listening (Hurford, 2014, P. 149).
Many scholars are quick to point out the shortcomings of colonists who have attempted to write down indigenous languages — these are rife with issues, technical and cultural (Ochoa Gautier, 2014, p. 4). On a technical level, it is unsurprising that these earlier attempts of recording indigenous language into written text are subpar, it’s shown that infants are no longer able to discriminate non-native speech sounds after 12 months of age (Brandt et all, 2012, p. 7). The brain specializes in understanding speech at a young age and part of the cost of this specialization is the inability to hear nuances in foreign sounds. Jewish text and reading is a confounding example in this indigenous language discussion. The Hebrew language has a complicated and turning past, but pronunciation of words and letters is still quite confused and lost despite the extensive writing and historical tools available to those at the time when compared to indigenous tribes with no writing culture. For example, Sephardic and Ashkenazi pronounce tav/sav differently, also, there are several letters that are homophones because their original pronunciation is lost.
So, what is knowledge? Webster’s dictionary defines knowledge as “the fact or condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or association” (Webster, “Knowledge”). Implied is a sense of awareness. Jewish people are very familiar and aware of God — regardless of whether the entity exists or not. This relationship is different than many other relationships or ways of knowing as Judaism (and Islam) share a prohibition of crafting physical manifestations of God. As mentioned previously, most ways of knowing through hearing are tied to an audio-visual experience, making this way of knowing an interesting case study.
Introduction to Judaism’s Key Texts and Oral Tradition
For the purposes of the remainder of this essay, when saying “Jewish people believe” I am referring to orthodox religious belief — as accepted by the Jewish people who observe the Torah and its commandments.
Jews believe that God’s teachings were given to Moses on Mount Sinai in two parts: The written law, in the form of the Ten Commandments carried down from the mountain together with the Torah which moses wrote later, and the Oral Law (Dubov). According to Dubov and religious Jewish tradition, the oral laws explain the Torah and together, the written law and oral law result in the present-day Jewish laws and practices.
The Torah is the most famous book in Judaism — the first five books of Moses: Genesis through Deuteronomy. Written in ancient Hebrew on a parchment scroll, Jewish people believe that the Torah read today is letter-for-letter the same as the one written by Moses as explained by God at Mount Sinai (Schuchat, 2011, P. 121). Jewish people believe that the Torah is perfect and intentional in its creation: “Every word and letter in the Torah is exact, and many laws can be extrapolated from an extra (or missing) word or letter, or a particular sequence which the Torah chooses to use” (Silberberg). It should be noted that when Jewish people refer to the Written Torah, they loosely include all books of the Tanach — which is a collection of books such as the prophets and writings in a collection quite similar to the Christian “Old Testament” (Silberberg).
After being taught verbally by God to Moses, The Oral Torah was taught verbally from generation to generation until it was also written down, in several steps. The Talmud, the largest text of the oral Torah, consists of Mishnah and Gemara. The Mishnah was written approximately 100–200 BCE, while The Gemara was added, in Aramaic around 200–500 CE in Babylonia (Schuchat, 2011, P. 206). The Gemara attempts to explain or reconcile the text of the Mishnah. Additional commentaries have been added over the following millennium (Schuchat, 2011, P. 207).
Above is a page of the Talmud. The very center is the text of the Mishnah, the surrounding text is the Gemara. The columns on the sides are later commentaries.
Implicit Questions of Truth and Specialness of Language
Common knowledge, or Truths are at the core of any religion or culture. In this way, Judaism sees the Torah as an immutable source of truth for the religion (Maimonides). This inflexibility in the light of the language used for the rest of Judaism’s Oral Torah is noteworthy. The Mishnah is written in a more mature form of Hebrew and the Talmud is written in Aramaic, a Mesopotamian language.
Why is Aural knowledge not good enough that messy written approximations are required? Or voiced another way, are writings just an outgrowth of Aural knowledge? In the case of Judaism, I would argue yes. Core to Talmud study is the idea of havruta learning — or partner learning. Holzer and Kent say that “making the text speak” is the responsible of a havruta partner (Holzer and Kent, 2013, p. 193). They go on to explain that the process of learning Talmud is not that of a reader blindly absorbing content or a critic, but rather one also because partners with the text, where the text speaks and the reader decides what he thinks it is saying.
What about the “written” Torah? Its letters are perfect and unchangeable, but does that mean that its content is unquestionable? Rabbis will fervently argue that every “mistake” in the Torah is actually an intentional lesson. Furthermore, Jews refer to any study of the written Torah or the Talmud to be “studying Torah”. They feel that reading Genesis may give an important textual foundation, but that the Talmud and commentary is required to unpack its full meaning. Many pages of Talmud are confusing and cyclical, leading to conclusions that are irrelevant to the practice of Judaism — especially in the modern day. For example, the first page of tractate Brachos is a discussion about when sunset and sunrise are — for the purposes of saying blessings at the correct time. Every ordained rabbi is familiar with this passage, even though it is not necessary to practice modern Jewish laws. This drills home a point of confusion for my logic-minded brain: the purpose of studying the Talmud is not to absorb the content of the Talmud, but rather to be engaged in this alternative way of thinking, knowing, and considering. For each hour that one is wrangling in a tome of immeasurable length and impossible depth, the study partner becomes closer to the God, religion, and culture.
Torah Rituals
I would like to look at the ritualistic practice of Judaism in the synagogue. The Torah is read from start to finish each year, with a prescribed section being read weekly. In the various Torah services throughout the week, the Torah is removed from the ark, praises and blessings are said regarding the Torah, and an adult Jewish man reads the Torah to the rest of the congregation. In this way, the congregation is once again turning the written Torah back into an aural, temporal experience.
Before and after reading from the Torah, the person honored with the blessing of the Torah — an aliya, proclaims the blessedness of God and that the Torah is true. Buried in these blessings and assertion of truth Is the notion of power; the important people in the community are the ones surrounding the Torah, proclaiming its truth. To a Jew, just as with an academic, the power of the individual is one that comes from teaching, tradition, community, and text. After the reading is completed, the Torah is raised and displayed for the entire congregation to see — an explicitly show of the Torah as the word of God to be celebrated. As the Torah is raised, the congregation says in unison “And this is the Torah that Moses placed before the congregation of Israel”. The Torah is then dressed in fancy velvet clothes, paraded around the sanctuary for everyone to kiss before being returned into its home in the front of the synagogue.
Jews are proud of the Torah and consider it to be the most important Jewish symbol of the entire religion. With its 613 rules (mitzvot), Jews believe that there would be no covenant with God without the Torah. From a Jewish perspective, without the covenant with God, Jews would be another lost nation in the world. The Torah is the word of God to the Jewish people. The Torah is the ultimate manifestation of oral and aural knowledge, the word of God, framing the relationship between people and their personal, social, and religious life. To the religious Jew, one cannot separate the physical Torah from its teachings, study, practice, and prayer. The writing of a Torah, one of its 613 commandments, is one that all Jews are to complete in their lifetime. The goal is not to create a written work, but rather to be involved in all parts of the continuation of the oral transmission from God to future generations. For the Jewish people, it is prohibited to create manifestations of God, but the Torah exists as the physical manifestation of the word of God, and it is the closest that one can come to having a physical representation of God.
In this way, The Jewish treatment of oral tradition is a counterexample of Ochoa Gautier’s relationship between voice and text, with the “technology of writing” (Ochoa Gautier, 2014, p. 7). In the Jewish perspective, the Torah is the technology that has facilitated the perpetuation of the voice of God in the way that makes it most preserved for perpetuity.
Jewish Liturgical Music and the Sabbath Prohibition of Musical Instruments
The most attended Jewish weekly services are those of the Sabbath — Friday evening and Saturday morning. During this time, touching, moving, or playing musical instruments is prohibited (Vered & Qimron, 2009, p. 65–66). There is much discussion as to whether this prohibition is related to the fact that priests played musical instruments during sacrifices in the Temple, or whether the prohibition surrounds the acts of making an instrument ready to play (Vered & Qimron, 2009, p. 67). The Talmud even goes on to say that “one may not drum, clap, or dance on Shabbat lest one come to fix a musical instrument” (Halacha Yomit/Talmud Masechet Beitzah 30a). Despite these strict rules, singing is permitted, and prayers are sung in the synagogue.
Most songs sung in Jewish synagogues on the Sabbath have melodies that were created in the past 200 years (Jaffe, 2020). Jewish liturgical music make heavy use of Phrygian modes and Western major/minor modes. They serve as a way of creating unity amongst the members of the congregation, as well as for serving as a textual memory aid. Much of Jewish prayer consists of blessings, reminders of the faith and relationship of the Jewish people to the creator, and snippets of Torah — including commandments. In as much as music is used in formal prayer services, it serves the needs and conveyance of the oral tradition. Even on non-Sabbath days where the playing of instruments is permitted, Jewish music is almost never performed on instruments without singing, and if so, it is typically a tune that has words, as background music for some formal occasion like a wedding.
Exclusion of Women from Oral Rituals and Talmud
Women are excluded from the study of Talmud and are not able to publically participate in a Torah service, yet many Orthodox Jewish women are quite scholarly and well-learned in their understanding. Women are not permitted to become rabbis. Why is this? Is it related to the nature of the religion? Is there something about this aural way of knowing and thinking that is somehow different for women compared to men? Or is it a puritan separation of the sexes to prohibit unintentional mingling? If this were true, then why aren’t women-only Talmud study groups prevalent? Furthermore, it is prohibited for women to sing in a context where men other than their husband could hear them sing. Jewish culture treats a woman’s singing voice as sexual in nature and to be reserved solely for her family (Shaked, 2020, p. 15).
Despite these explicit prohibitions of women from participating in oral rituals, Jewish women are not ignorant and have parallel tracks of learning and knowing in their communities. Classes for women are common. It is interesting that even within a single religion with one God and one people, that there are multiple ways of learning, knowing, and transmitting oral and aural knowledge. A defense of Judaism’s different treatment of men and women is the celebration of the differences between the genders, an acknowledgement of the fact that each gender relates to God in its own designated way; with each wielding its own power.
Conclusion
Through this exploration of Jewish writing and ritual practice, I have argued that Judaism is a religion of aural knowledge. The Torah and Talmud serve as written technology to facilitate this knowledge; if these works existed without the process and oral way of learning, Judaism would not exist in its present form. Through this reasoning, writing is an extension of oral/aural information and not its own entity. Jewish prohibitions around music performance and involvement of women in rituals and study provide more ways of thinking about the multiple ways of learning and transmitting a culture.
References
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