תלמוד על מגילה 36:4

From where the translation? Rebbi Ze`ira in the name of Rav Ḥananel: They read in the Scroll of the Torah<sup>33</sup>Neh. 8:8., that is the reading. Explained, that is the translation<sup>34</sup>Since this is proved from a text in Hagiographs, the Targum has the status of an institution of the Men of the Great Assembly.. Making sense, these are the accents<sup>35</sup>Which indicate the divisions of sentences into logical units.. And understood the reading, this is the Masora, and some say, these are the decisions<sup>36</sup>The sentences where the caesura and therefore the meaning is not obvious. Avodah zarah 2:8, Notes 325 ff., and some say, these are the starts of verses<sup>37</sup>The division of the text into verses is oral tradition since no punctuation is permitted in the text. The last three options are variants of the theme that the text is intelligible only on the basis of traditional pronunciation. Babli 3a, Nedarim 37b.. Rebbi Ze`ira in the name of Rav Ḥananel: Even an expert in the Torah like Ezra should not pronounce with his mouth³⁸One may not recite a Torah text by heart (nor, as pointed out in the sequel, write the text by heart.) Babli 18b. and read as it is said about Baruch: And from his mouth he would read all these words to me and I was writing on a scroll with ink³⁹Jer. 36:18.. But was it not stated⁴⁰Babli 18b, Tosephta 2:5., “it happened that Rebbi Meïr was in Essia where there was no Esther scroll written in Hebrew, when he wrote it by heart and read it. One does not infer from emergency situations. But there are those who say that he wrote two. He wrote the first by heart, and copied the second one from the first one, put away the first and read from the second.” Rebbi Ismael ben Rebbi Yose says, I can write the entire Torah from memory. The Elder Rebbi Ḥiyya said, I can write the entire Torah for two minas⁴¹Babli Bava meṣia` 85b.. How would he do it? He buys flax seed for two minas, sowed and harvested it, made ropes to catch deer and wrote the entire Torah on their hides. Rebbi heard it and said, happy is (the people) [the generation]⁴²The corrector’s change is unnecessary since Rebbi is known as proponent of correct use of Hebrew; for him גוי means “people”, not “Gentile”. to which you belong.