Of Making Many Books [in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction]: The Ḥatam Sofer on Print, Scholarship, and Knowledge

Abstract This essay examines a responsa by Moses Schreiber (Ḥatam Sofer) in which he addresses the implications of print and mechanical reproduction for Jewish books. Schreiber’s approach to print is strikingly ambivalent. On the one hand, he was an active and influential figure in the world of Hebrew printing—regulating printing activity, supporting publishers, endorsing books, and writing haskamot (approbations). On the other hand, he adamantly refused to allow his own writings to be printed. While scholarship on Schreiber has noted and documented this refusal, the present essay offers an additional layer of interpretation. I argue that Schreiber’s objections to the printing of his own work open a window onto his working methods and his views on scholarship and knowledge. Reading his responsa through two conceptual frameworks— migrating knowledge and the history of the book —this essay explores questions of the creation, transmission, and transformation of knowledge; the contrasting qualities attributed to hand-copied and press-printed texts; and the perceived fixity of the printed book and its impact on scholarly practice.