A short animated film · 12 chapters

The Medium Is the Midrash

המדיום הוא המדרש

Marshall McLuhan’s media theory, run across three thousand years of Jewish text: from the voice at Sinai to the hyperlinked Talmud page.

01 / 12 פתיחה Opening

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Script

The full narration, chapter by chapter. Each chapter pairs one Jewish textual medium with the McLuhan idea that best explains it.

Marshall McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962) and Understanding Media (1964); Marshall and Eric McLuhan, Laws of Media (1988), the source of the tetrad.
Primary texts: Nehemiah 8 (Ezra at the Water Gate), Gittin 60b (oral teachings stay oral), Berakhot 2a (the first page of the Talmud, which opens on the evening Shema).
Daf Yomi dates and the 2,711-page count follow the Daf Yomi record; the 2020 Siyum HaShas attendance follows the Jewish Standard.
The Responsa Project began at the Weizmann Institute in 1963; Sefaria was founded in 2011.
The hot and cool readings of Hebrew script, the Mishnah and the printed daf are this film’s own application of McLuhan’s categories.