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Talmudic times, the most honored class in the community were the
scholars; a retentive memory was thus a particularly prized gift.
It was natural, then, that superstitions should have accumulated
on the subject. The following selections are taken from the Babylonian
Talmud, Nezikin, Tractate Horayot 13b. |
Five
things make learning to be forgotten:
- eating what had
been nibbled by a mouse or by a cat;
- regularly eating
olives;
- eating an animal's
heart;
- drinking water
in which somebody has washed;
- and placing one
foot over the other while washing them.
Five
things restore learning to the memory:
- bread baked on
coals;
- soft-boiled eggs
without salt;
- frequent drinking
of olive-oil and spiced wine;
- and drinking the
water which remains from kneading dough;
- dipping the finger
in salt and eating it.
Ten
things are bad for memorizing study:
- passing beneath
the bridle of a camel;
- and how much
more so passing beneath the camel itself;
- passing between
two camels or two women, or being one of two men between whom a
woman passes;
- passing under
a place where there is the foul odor of a carcass;
- passing beneath
a bridge under which water has not flowed for forty days;
- eating bread
not sufficiently baked;
- eating meat
from a soup-ladle;
- drinking water
from a conduit which passes through a cemetery;
- gazing into
the face of a corpse.
- reading the
inscriptions on tombstones.
And
don't you forget it.
MEMORY
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