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From: R. Kovacs
Subject: Case significance
Date: 24 Tammuz 5781
Rav Halevi's comparison to scribal tradition reminds me of something.
In Munkacs, before the war, there was a practice among the chevra. When recording a name in the community records, the shammas would write only the consonants of the family name. The vowels were considered known. Everyone in town knew how Goldberg was pronounced, so why write it?
After the war, a new shammas had to reconstruct the records. He found lists of names like GLDBRG and RSNBM and WLFWTZ. Some he could guess. Others were lost. The vowels that everyone knew had died with everyone who knew them.
I do not know if case is like vowels. But I know that what is obvious to one generation may be opaque to the next.
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