First page of the first tractate of the Talmud (Daf Beis of Maseches Brachos)

Shas Pollak were Jewish

mnemonist The title mnemonist refers to an individual with the ability to remember and recall unusually long lists of data, such as unfamiliar names, lists of numbers, entries in books, etc. Some mnemonists also memorize texts such as long poems, speeches, o ...

s who, according to the 1917 report of George Stratton in the '' Psychological Review'', memorized the exact layout of words in more than 5,000 pages of the 12 books of the standard edition of the

Babylonian Talmud The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cent ...

. Stratton's report consists of accounts of and comments on testimonials of three eyewitnesses. Two of the eyewitnesses stated that the memorizing was related to the Talmud part, printed in the centers of the pages, and not the surrounding commentary.George M. Stratton: The mnemonic feat of the 'Shass Pollak', Psychological Review 24 (1917) 244-247, reprinted in ''Memory Observed: Remembering in Natural Contexts'', eds. Ulric. Neisser, Ira Hyman, 1978, , pp. 311-314 "Shas" is a

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

acronym An acronym is a word or name formed from the initial components of a longer name or phrase. Acronyms are usually formed from the initial letters of words, as in ''NATO'' (''North Atlantic Treaty Organization''), but sometimes use syllables, as ...

for the words ''shishah sedarim'', "six orders", or

Mishnah The Mishnah or the Mishna (; he, מִשְׁנָה, "study by repetition", from the verb ''shanah'' , or "to study and review", also "secondary") is the first major written collection of the Jewish oral traditions which is known as the Oral Tor ...

; "shas" is also a colloquial reference to the

Talmud The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law ('' halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the ce ...

. "Pollak" means "

Pole Pole may refer to: Astronomy *Celestial pole, the projection of the planet Earth's axis of rotation onto the celestial sphere; also applies to the axis of rotation of other planets *Pole star, a visible star that is approximately aligned with the ...

" in

Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ve ...

, referring to a

Polish Jew The history of the Jews in Poland dates back at least 1,000 years. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Ashkenazi Jewish community in the world. Poland was a principal center of Jewish culture, because of the lon ...

, so the term literally means "The Talmud-Pole" or the "Polish Talmudist." G.M. Stratton quotes a letter from a Reverend Dr. David Phillipson of

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

who described the so-called "pin test":

...A pin would be placed on a word, let us say, the fourth word in line eight; the memory sharp would then be asked what word is in the same spot on page thirty-eight or fifty or any other page; the pin would be pressed through the volume until it reached page thirty eight or page fifty or any other page designated; the memory sharp would then mention the word and it was found invariably correct. He had visualized in his brain the whole Talmud; in other words, the pages of the Talmud were photographed on his brain. It was one of the most stupendous feats of memory I have ever witnessed and there was no fake about it.

Another reputable witness was Dr.

Solomon Schechter Solomon Schechter ( he, שניאור זלמן הכהן שכטר‎; 7 December 1847 – 19 November 1915) was a Moldavian-born British-American rabbi, academic scholar and educator, most famous for his roles as founder and President of the ...

, the then President of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. This feat has since been quoted in many books on

memory Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembered ...

. Stratton writes that all eyewitnesses noticed that none of the ''Shas Pollak'' known to them have attained any prominence in the scholarly world. In a footnote, Stratton's article also mentions that memorizing the Talmud was a subject of the work by J. Brüll, ''"Die Mnemotechnik des Talmuds"'', Vienna, 1864, and that the Talmudic mnemonics is a subject of an article"Mnemonics"
''Jewish Encyclopedia'' in the '' Jewish Encyclopedia''.

Literary references

A 1993 novelette ''Ginger'' (Рыжик) by

Mikhail Veller Mikhail Iosifovich Veller (also sometimes Weller; russian: Михаи́л Ио́сифович Ве́ллер, uk, Михайло Йосипович Веллер) (born May 20, 1948) is a Russian writer of Ukrainian Jewish extraction. He holds a ...

about the fate of a Jewish boy who became a member of ''

spetsnaz Spetsnaz are special forces in numerous post-Soviet states. (The term is borrowed from rus, спецназ, p=spʲɪtsˈnas; abbreviation for or 'Special Purpose Military Units'; or .) Historically, the term ''spetsnaz'' referred to the S ...

,'' has the following passage: "Torah was supposed to be known as follows. The Grandfather opened the book at random and punched a word with a pin. You were supposed to recite the text starting with the word pinned on the opposite page of the sheet."

References

External links

* {{Memory Mnemonists Talmudists Yiddish words and phrases

Literary references

See also

References

External links