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In school, we sometimes utilized mnemonic devices to help us recall facts. Two well-known examples include “Roy G. Biv” to remember the colors of the rainbow – red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.” Or perhaps you can recite the names of the Great Lakes based on this mnemonic – “Homes”, meaning Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie and Superior.
In the Talmudic era, from roughly the second to the seventh centuries CE, memory devices were more crucial than they are today due to the lack of written materials. Some of this gap was bridged by the fact that, let’s face it, these individuals had stronger memory skills than we do (okay, than I do). We also have evidence that recall was aided by note-taking, usually on a wax slate which was inscribed with a stylus. In rabbinic literature, this was known as a pinkas, from the Greek word pinaks.
The Talmud records one such mnemonic device relating to this week’s portion, Vayeshev. Joseph was described as “going down” to Egypt. This was both literal – he was, after all, thrown in both a pit and a prison – and figurative, leaving his family and the land of Canaan. In the tractate Bava Metzia, a debate is recorded concerning an upper story shower which leaked into a lower story apartment. Who is responsible for the repair, the owner of the upper story or the owner of the lower story?
Who must repair the ceiling? Rabbi Ḥiyya bar Abba says: The upper resident repairs it, and Rabbi Elai says in the name of Rabbi Ḥiyya, son of Rabbi Yosei (= Joseph): The lower resident repairs it. The Gemara comments: And the following verse can serve as a mnemonic device to remember who issued which ruling: “And Joseph was brought down to Egypt” (Genesis 39:1). Rabbi Ḥiyya, son of Rabbi Yosei, indicated by Joseph, is the Sage who maintains that the owner of the lower story, indicated by: Brought down, must repair the ceiling.
Get it? If we have trouble recalling which sage declared the lower story resident responsible, we can remember that the scholar with “Joseph” (=Yosi) in his name is the one holding that opinion. The other sage, by default, must support the view that the upper story resident is liable.
The late Professor Jacob Neusner of Brown University has shown that there are many mnemonic devices in rabbinic literature, all utilized to maintain textual integrity in an oral world.
Given that memory doesn’t improve with age, guess I’ll be coming up with a few mnemonics of my own.
- Rabbi Scott Hoffman
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