When were Jewish boys requried to memorize the Torah?

Answer 1

Jewish boys have never been required to memorize the Torah.

Answer:Jewish males are required to learn the Torah (Deuteronomy 5:1). When done diligently, a Jew often finds that he has learned large portions of the Torah by heart, whether deliberately or simply as a result of learning. Even today, there are Jews who know the entire Tanakh and Talmud by heart.

In ancient times when the Oral Torah had not been committed to writing, it was indeed required of every serious student to learn it by heart. Every one of the several thousand people named in the Talmud knew all of it by heart; otherwise they would not have been equipped to take part in its discussions.

Answer 2

Memorizing Torah passages is not part of the Jewish tradition. Jews traditionally pray from prayerbooks and read Torah. Literacy is highly prized. However, most Jews can recite key passages from memory, notably the first part of the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4-9). It is quite likely that many Jews have memorized this by bar mitzvah age. Also, many Jewish boys end up memorizing the Torah portion for their first alyiah (when they are called up to the Torah on their bar mitzvah). This is because reading Torah is traditionally done to a melody (trope) that is tightly connected to the grammar of the text. For those who are really fluent in Hebrew, the trope follows largely from the text and grammar, with a few elements in each passage that must be memorized, but for those who are not fluent, memorizing the entire passage and using the written text as a crutch to spur the memory is a faster track to what, for many less observant boys, is a once-in-a-lifetime event.