Putting the Kind in Kindle
Radbam November 23rd, 2009
Blessed are you, Adonai our God, Ruler of the Universe, who makes us holy through commandments, and commands us to kindle the Sabbath lights. Friday evening Sabbath Prayer for Jews
As with many faith traditions, for Jews, light is a symbol of more than just physical illumination and warmth. It celebrates and sanctifies intellectual enlightenment as a means of achieving moral purpose. The Ner Tamid (Eternal Light), the universal synagogue fixture directly above the ark containing the Torah, possesses the subtlety of a spiritual sledgehammer. If the Torah enshrined beneath this ubiquitous lamp is God’s chosen manner of revelation, then the inextricable link between the cerebral and the sacred is plain.
My rumination on varying forms of enlightenment was sparked by a recent essay on the cultural impact of Amazon’s Kindle. Anthony Grafton’s piece, an analysis and book review, covered the expected tension between the tactile pleasures of the tome v.s. the convenience and accessibility of the cybercodex. But beyond ease of portability and the compulsive urgency of first adoption, the larger issue addressed concerns the probability and viability of the Kindle and its kin as surrogates for hardcopy. Will pulp, gloss and the bricks and mortar required to produce and house tangible knowledge go the way of vinyl, tape and disk–a rarefied, arcane and luxuriant mode for bibliophiles and neo-Luddites?
Certainly dispute and discomfort met the transition from tablet to parchment, from manuscript to press. There will always be Theodorics of York condemning Gutenbergs and Bombergs, heralding the perils of machine replacing man. But despite the beauty, craftsmanship and uniqueness of the ornately illuminated, only the uncharacteristically literate and economically lucky perused books regularly, with fewer actually owning works costing a serf’s seasonal wage. The democratization of knowledge through mass production and the power it conveyed was an unprecedented dynamo in the growth of culture and civilization.
But beyond modes and forms, the kindled dawn upon us is more evolution than revolution in substance and content. The most enduring narratives and traditions passed through the millennia were religious. The integrity of the sacred message, and the concomitant consensus of tradition and authority such secure passage ensured, derived from a remarkable ability to adapt to changing circumstances. The course of Jewish history, from tribal nomadism to national monarchy, from periods of autonomy to abject oppression, found apt reflection in evolving Torah. Epics sung around the clan fire were forged through the centuries into rudimentary texts, truncated and shaped with interpretive, agenda-driven vigor by succeeding generations into the common canon we have today.
The means and the message inextricably fused well before such phenomenon were popularly observed and theorized by McLuhan. The portability of mass marketed texts did more than serve the needs of style. Their prevalence and permeation in Western culture amplified the effluence of faith, and the faith itself was marked by the medium. Gutenberg’s choice of text did more for the followers of the Jesus/Paul matrix than Constantine’s edict. And the ability to carry revelation in a rucksack, especially when escaping burning synagogues and villages, enabled the faith of Moses to transcend the long and painful absence of tangible shrines and established homeland.
It may be too triumphalist to declare the Kindle the leading edge of a new Enlightenment. And there are practical pitfalls plaguing the device that cast doubt on its longterm viability. But these will be remedied. The dominance of digital reading is simply a matter of time, beyond speculation and debate. But rather than fear and deride the inevitable, we should take inspiration from the countless who came before us, expanding horizons of knowledge and perspective that can only come from dramatic change. Let’s take comfort in the Chinese axiom that seems eminently semitic: Better to kindle light than curse the darkness.
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