The Jewish legacy of Johannes Gutenberg
By: Yonason Goldson
Tags: Jewish History, Jewish, Bible, Scholarship, Gutenberg

How movable type transformed the secular and spiritual worlds

Photo by Mark Pellegrini via Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Gutenberg#/media/File:Gutenberg_Bible.jpg

Two decades ago, when Biography.com presented its list of the 100 most influential people of the last millennium, their choice for the Number 1 position was indisputable. By introducing the Western world to movable type, Johannes Gutenberg inaugurated the rapid expansion of knowledge that produced the Renaissance and eventually made literacy the rule rather than the exception.

It’s a sad footnote to history that Gutenberg possessed far more mechanical savvy than business acumen. He died penniless, failing to capitalize upon his own innovation.

A happier footnote is the contribution Gutenberg’s innovation made to Jewish culture and scholarship.

Movable type first appeared as early as 1041, when Chinese printers fashioned interchangeable clay pieces to replace the clumsy chiseled plates that preceded them. It was not Gutenberg’s invention, therefore, but rather his introduction of centuries-old technology in Europe, where the Chinese system had either gone unnoticed or been ignored. Gutenberg completed his printing press, equipped with wooden or cast metal type pieces, in 1440. His best known creation, the Gutenberg Bible, began rolling off the presses 568 years ago this month, on September 30, 1452.

PEOPLE OF THE BOOK

It took little time for Jewish publishers to recognize the opportunity offered by the printing revolution. Scarcely 20 years after Gutenberg’s Bible appeared, two Jewish presses on opposite ends of the Italian peninsula labored — each unbeknownst to the other — to prepare the first Torah manuscripts for mass production.

On 17 February 1475, Abraham ben Garton published the first volume of Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki’s commentary on the Five Books of Moses in the southern town of Reggio di Calabria. Commonly known by the acronym Rashi, Rabbi Yitzchaki’s 400-year-old manuscript had already become the most influential and authoritative treatise in Jewish academic tradition.

And, as if he had been brought into the world for no other purpose, its ground-breaking publisher had vanished from history by the end of that very year.

Always terse, often infuriatingly cryptic, Rashi’s commentary is first learned by wide-eyed Jewish six-year-olds in its distinctive script, yet studied by 85-year-olds with the same sense of wonder and revelation. Over 300 super-commentaries have been written on Rashi, whose singular blend of encyclopedic knowledge, theological nuance, and literary restraint provides seemingly endless opportunities for discovery and interpretation.

Perhaps even more significant is Rashi’s pedagogical style, which alludes to questions without explicitly asking them. By prodding his students to seek questions that might have gone unnoticed, Rashi transforms scriptural study from mere doctrinal analysis into a rigorous exercise in critical thinking and syllogistic creativity. Moreover, his philosophical lessons are so subtly couched within his technical explanations that younger readers might easily miss the moral insights that will lie dormant until their minds mature enough to appreciate them.

NO REST FOR THE RIGHTEOUS

It was rare in those days for scholars to be supported by stipends or benefactors. It is believed that Rashi supported himself as a winemaker, yet he had time to compose a commentary not only on the Five Books of Moses but the entire Old Testament, as well as nearly all 5422 pages of the Babylonian Talmud.

Rashi’s influence on Jewish scholarship cannot be overstated. Not a day goes by that tens of thousands of seminary students and lay scholars do not engage in the study of Rashi’s commentaries, and his writings form the foundation of virtually every work of Torah scholarship that came after him.

He died in the French town of Troyes in 1105 at the age of 65, having witnessed the barbarity of the First Crusade while miraculously escaping its violence himself.

WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN

As an additional footnote to history, it’s tantalizing to consider how close the first Bible came to being produced by a Jewish publisher.

In 1444, a decade before Gutenberg, a French goldsmith named Procopius Waldvogel, from the southern city of Avignon, entered into partnership with a Jew named Davin de Caderousse. Having heard of Gutenberg’s experiments in printing as he traveled through Germany, or perhaps conceiving the innovation of movable type on his own, Procopius sought an alliance that would bring his inspiration to reality. Davin, a dyer by profession, contributed his knowledge of ink and mechanical devices, while Procopius fashioned the 27 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, cast in iron. In a contract that remains intact to this day, Davin certified that he had, on 26 August 1446, received the agreed upon materials to implement the craft of “artificial writing.”

It remains uncertain whether Davin envisioned an actual printing press or more of an archaic typewriter. Either way, as the Jews of Avignon were quite active in the book trade as binders, parchment procurers, and merchandisers already, Davin seems to have been eager to capitalize upon a promising new technology.

The business venture, however, was not destined to succeed. Neither Davin nor Procipius seems to have been satisfied with the contribution of the other, and their quarrel culminated not merely in the liquidation of their partnership but in a lawsuit, wherein the court ordered Davin to return Procopius’s typeset and forbade him to disseminate his craft within 30 miles of Avignon.

No one knows whether any Jewish publications actually made it into print from Davin’s press. But it’s difficult not to imagine how, had events taken a slightly different course, it might have been a Jew instead of Gutenberg whom we honor for having given the printed word to the world.