![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
It just so happens that I started to write Genesis just around the time we started the annual Torah reading cycle over again, so lately I've been writing more or less along with the weekly reading.
A few weeks ago, in parshat Noah, I got a call from the cantor on Thursday saying please could I read on Saturday - one of the long sections full of hard words that no-one else wanted. Just a day or two previously, I'd written that whole section, and I think it made learning the section a bit easier. Writing doesn't help me remember large sections - it's not repetitious enough, I think - but that extra bit of familiarity with all those obscure names certainly helped. It's hard to forget Arpakhshad when you've spent simply ages fitting all his letters into the line, or Hatzarmavet when you spent ten minutes giggling about his name because it nearly means "Courtyard-death."
This week, in Toledot, I was doing the good bit, the story where Jacob and Rebecca deceive elderly blind Isaac, so that Jacob gets all the paternal goodies and Esav gets left out in the cold. (And that bit has merkha khefula, for those who care about such things - cool!) I spent a lot of last week learning it - it's a bit more than two columns, quite a hefty chunk. And then today I came to write it, and it's a different experience altogether - I think I prefer it the other way round.
Cos when I'm writing, I usually make pictures in my head of what's going on. Something that takes five seconds to read in shul takes five minutes to write, and you just try taking a whole five minutes to convey some camels having a drink - you've got to think about something. In fact, that's one of the things I love about writing; you go slow enough that you can really get behind the words. You have time to picture Israel and camels and tents, and to wonder about the bits that don't get talked about, and it all becomes much more vivid and intense.
By contrast, when I'm learning a piece for reading, I'm not thinking about the words, I'm thinking about the tunes. You read Torah by fitting little tunelets to the words; there are twenty or so little tunelets, and your job as the reader is to memorise which tunelets go with which words and render them convincingly. The tunelets and vowels are not in the scroll, so you have to learn them ahead of time. I find it a little stressful - it's a lot of memorising. I enjoy reading very much (more on that some other time), but learning it is still a bit stressful.
Thus, now I'm coming back to write the verses I learned a few days ago, I'm remembering the slightly stressed feeling of learning them for public rendition. I'm also remembering the tune formations, and the interesting things I noticed about the tune formations, and the connections to the other verses before and after, and that's making me spend less time thinking about the individual words and more time thinking about the bigger picture. It's a different perspective; I'm not so much getting the very rich pictures one gets from focusing in on one or two words. I'm missing that; the focus on one or two words is one of the things I find most pleasing about writing. When I'm learning a part I've already written, I'm remembering the pictures and thoughts I had while I was writing, and laying the tune over that, and I think I like that better. It's certainly more relaxed, and I think it's more meaningful, too - reading something is different once you've become acquainted with it by writing it.
A few weeks ago, in parshat Noah, I got a call from the cantor on Thursday saying please could I read on Saturday - one of the long sections full of hard words that no-one else wanted. Just a day or two previously, I'd written that whole section, and I think it made learning the section a bit easier. Writing doesn't help me remember large sections - it's not repetitious enough, I think - but that extra bit of familiarity with all those obscure names certainly helped. It's hard to forget Arpakhshad when you've spent simply ages fitting all his letters into the line, or Hatzarmavet when you spent ten minutes giggling about his name because it nearly means "Courtyard-death."
This week, in Toledot, I was doing the good bit, the story where Jacob and Rebecca deceive elderly blind Isaac, so that Jacob gets all the paternal goodies and Esav gets left out in the cold. (And that bit has merkha khefula, for those who care about such things - cool!) I spent a lot of last week learning it - it's a bit more than two columns, quite a hefty chunk. And then today I came to write it, and it's a different experience altogether - I think I prefer it the other way round.
Cos when I'm writing, I usually make pictures in my head of what's going on. Something that takes five seconds to read in shul takes five minutes to write, and you just try taking a whole five minutes to convey some camels having a drink - you've got to think about something. In fact, that's one of the things I love about writing; you go slow enough that you can really get behind the words. You have time to picture Israel and camels and tents, and to wonder about the bits that don't get talked about, and it all becomes much more vivid and intense.
By contrast, when I'm learning a piece for reading, I'm not thinking about the words, I'm thinking about the tunes. You read Torah by fitting little tunelets to the words; there are twenty or so little tunelets, and your job as the reader is to memorise which tunelets go with which words and render them convincingly. The tunelets and vowels are not in the scroll, so you have to learn them ahead of time. I find it a little stressful - it's a lot of memorising. I enjoy reading very much (more on that some other time), but learning it is still a bit stressful.
Thus, now I'm coming back to write the verses I learned a few days ago, I'm remembering the slightly stressed feeling of learning them for public rendition. I'm also remembering the tune formations, and the interesting things I noticed about the tune formations, and the connections to the other verses before and after, and that's making me spend less time thinking about the individual words and more time thinking about the bigger picture. It's a different perspective; I'm not so much getting the very rich pictures one gets from focusing in on one or two words. I'm missing that; the focus on one or two words is one of the things I find most pleasing about writing. When I'm learning a part I've already written, I'm remembering the pictures and thoughts I had while I was writing, and laying the tune over that, and I think I like that better. It's certainly more relaxed, and I think it's more meaningful, too - reading something is different once you've become acquainted with it by writing it.