Shas Pollak
Shas Pollak were Jewish
"Shas" is a
G.M. Stratton quotes a letter from a Reverend Dr. David Phillipson of Cincinnati who described the so-called "pin test":[1]
...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, the then President of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.[1]
This feat has since been quoted in many books on memory.
Stratton writes that all eyewitnesses noticed that none of the Shas Pollak known to them have attained any prominence in the scholarly world.[1]
In a footnote, Stratton's article
Literary references
A 1993 novelette Ginger (Рыжик) by Mikhail Veller about the fate of a Jewish boy who became a member of spetsnaz, 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."
See also
References
- ^ ISBN 0-7167-3319-6, pp. 311-314
- ^ "Mnemonics", Jewish Encyclopedia
External links
- MacDowell, Fred (25 January 2010). "The Talmud-Memorizer-Performer, Rabbi Hirsch Denmark". onthemainline.