When I Became a Censor

Upon completing my reading of Marc Shapiro's book, Changing the Immutable, which deals with Orthodox censorship of 'inconvenient' texts, I suddenly had a very uncomfortable feeling, a type of dejà vu. Upon further thought, I realized why. I was once faced with a situation similar to that which confronted the various editors and publishers that Shapiro describes. And, much like those who are the targets of his indignation, I chose to modify the record.

And this is the story.

In 1982, in anticipation both of the eightieth birthday of Mori ve-Rabi, Rav Soloveitchik זצ"ל and the fortieth anniversary of his tenure at RIETS, the Student Organization of Yeshiva decided to publish a Festschrift in his honor, which would be solely comprised of articles in classic Talmud and Halakhah. We planned to invite leading Rashe Yeshiva in the United States, as a way of underscoring our Rebbe's status as the greatest exponent of Brisker Lomdus in our generation (as once asserted by the late Ponivizher Rosh Yeshiva, Rav Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman זצ"ל) and of pushing back against the antagonism that lesser lights in the Yeshiva World expressed toward him. The editor of the volume, my old and dear friend Moshe Sherman (now the Associate Dean of the Graduate School of Jewish Studies at Touro College) asked if I'd be interested in serving as Co-Editor. I was deeply honored to have been asked and accepted immediately. (I am listed on the Title Page by my Hebrew Name, with the Yiddish spelling of my Last Name--which was changed by the Israeli Interior Ministry when I made Aliyah. So a lot of people don't know that I was the Asst. Editor).

Cover Page

We made up a list of Rashe Yeshiva from whom we would solicit articles. If I recall correctly, to our great excitement and satisfaction, almost all those to whom we turned agreed. 

 

One person to whom we turned, was the Lubavitcher Rebbe זצ"ל, with whom Rav Soloveitchik had a long relationship. I wrote a letter, which was edited by Rabbi Herschel Schacter ז"ל (who agreed to deliver it) and then signed by both myself and Moshe. (The letter recently resurfaced in the book, Early Years.)

 

As can be seen from the Rebbe's notation, we were turned down because submitting such articles was, apparently, something that Lubavitcher Rebbeim didn't do. However, while we were disappointed, we were very happy with the positive response to our invitation. 

We were especially happy that the Telzer Rosh Yeshiva, Rav Mordechai Gifter זצ"ל, agreed to contribute to the volume. Rav Gifter had a long history of affiliation with Yeshiva University, having studied there in the 1930's where he was a disciple of the Rav's father, Rav Moshe Solovveitchik זצ"ל. In fact, it was his uncle, the Dean of RIETS, Samuel Sar ז"ל, who sent Rav Gifter to study in Telz in Lithuania. Nevertheless, Rav Gifter was ideologically very far from the YU World. When Moshe handed me his hand-written article for transcription, I felt it was a real coup.

And then I read the dedication. 

  - בהגיע ראש הישיבה הגרי"ד סולובייצ'יק שליט"א לגבורות דכירנא עם בואו לאמריקא ואזכור שמחת אביו מורי הגר"מ סולובייצ'יק ז"ל בבן חכם המשמח אב. ועוד דזכורני שיעורו הנפלא בבואו לישיבה בגדר דין הקרבן שבשעיר המשתלח שיש בו קיום קרבן פנים בדין ועמד חי והעמיק הרחיב בברירות המחשבה והסגנון גם יחד.

 א"כ ברבות הימים העמיד (או עמדו לו) תלמידים שאינם הגונים ולכן גם שיעוריו בפילוסופיא היו למקור אכזב ועתה בהגיעו לגבורות יחזקהו ד' להמשיך בהרבצת התורה, לפתח בתלמידים הבנת התורה ועוד רבות בשנים יזכה בתורת ה' רק להמנות בין ממשיכי דרכה של בית בריסק.

  

 As I read the words, especially those I've highlighted (and which I've reconstructed from memory), I didn't know what to do with myself. On the one hand, how could I let such harsh words be published and thereby humiliate Rav Soloveitchik, who was still alive and well ('unworthy students' 'philosophy lectures were a source of disappointment/failure'?). On the other hand, Rav Gifter was one of the leading Rashe Yeshiva in America. Could I really tamper with his text? I really didn't know what to do. 

It was at that point that I recalled something that Professor Twersky זצ"ל had once told me. If a phrase can be removed from a paragraph, without thereby harming the flow thereof, that phrase may be deemed to be parenthetical and incidental to the argument. I reread the paragraph without the offending sentence and was happy to discover its absence was not felt. I told Moshe of my idea, and we decided to publish the dedication accordingly (telling myself that Rav Gifter couldn't really have expected that we were going to include his nasty remarks in the final product--and that's why wrote as he did.) As it was, the last sentence retained some of the sharpness of the deleted words (רק להמנות בין ממשיכי דרכה של בית  בריסק

 

 After reading Shapiro's book, and recalling this episode from long ago, I felt I needed to set the record straight and to admit that, in retrospect and despite my agreement that the Past should be allowed to speak for itself on its own terms, I do understand and feel for the dilemma of disciples who resort to censorship in order to protect the feelings of their masters.

Thoughts on Marc Shapiro's "Changing the Immutable"

This Pesach afforded me an opportunity to make a dent in my pile of 'must-reads.' On the top of the pile was Marc Shapiro's widely hailed study on internal Orthodox censorship, Changing the Immutable: How Orthodox Judaism Rewrites Its History. Reading it was an exhilarating, informative and enriching experience. Needless to say, he more than proves his point there is a long history of internal censorship with Post-Talmudic Judaism, a phenomenon which has literally exploded in the past century, and even more so in the past thirty years, particularly in Haredi circles. 

Shapiro, as I once noted, is a master historical sleuth and the erudition that is reflected in this volume is nothing less than stunning. He addresses hundreds of cases of self-censorship, spanning dozens and dozens of literary genres and disciplines. In every case, he displays truly impressive mastery of both the many editions of the works that he discusses, as well as the secondary literature that pertains thereto. As a result, the book acquires a secondary role as a valuable reference tool.

Since this is not a formal review, I will confine myself here to a few random thoughts and observations. 

1) As I already noted, Shapiro makes a convincing case for his argument that many important rabbinic works have been tampered with by editors and publishers, for a wide variety of reasons. Indeed, if there is a central (sobering) lesson to be derived from reading this volume, it is that one can never really be sure that one possesses the ipsissima verba of any Rishon, Aharon or Modern Rabbinic authority--- especially in cases where the writer touches on a subject that later readers find problematic. The problem is compounded by the fact, amply documented by the author, that often the censorship is so elegant as to leave the innocent reader with not a hint that the text before him has been tampered with.

2) As some reviewers have already noted, the book suffers from the absence of a rigorous conceptual framework by which to judge the various types of actions that the author describes. Not all of the types of censorship that he describes are of a piece, nor are they all self-evidently censorious. One example that I found particularly noteworthy was Shapiro's claim that withholding halakhic information from the masses (הלכה ואין מורין כן), constitutes outright censorship. 
    This is misleading. There is a fundamental difference between bowdlerizing texts and rewriting the historical record, on the one hand, and restricting professional information to those trained to handle it. Orthodox Jews believe that the future of one's soul depends upon the proper observance of Halakhah. Not every person is properly trained in the discipline, and irresponsible use of half-understood information can lead to very negative results. It is for that reason, that authorities opposed the publication of halakhic handbooks, such as the Shulhan Arukh (as Prof. Twersky noted some fifty years ago.) This is not censorship, though it is an expression of professional elitism (of an open ended elite, as noted by the Bavli in Sotah 22b).

3) On a similar note, I was bewildered by a long excursus dealing with the shift in practice regarding the determination of twilight and nightfall (בין השמשות וצאת הכוכבים). Shapiro, correctly, observes that the widespread acceptance of the Geonic approach that defines Twilight as commencing with astronomical sunset, creates a situation wherein the manner whereby a majority of Observant Jews observe Shabbat contradicts the opinion of most Rishonim. The result is that these same Jews are effectively violating Shabbat (according to these Rishonim) by virtue of their ending the day too early.
Frankly, I don't understand Shapiro's apparent outrage. There are multiple halakhic controversies where one side views the other's as constituting a heinous crime. (The controversy over חלב discussed by Eric Zimmer in Olam keMinhago Noheg, 250-262 comes to mind). In the absence of a Sanhedrin, such anomalies are part of the system. And, while it is true that a reversal of an overwhelming consensus is a dramatic development, it is certainly legitimate under the proper conditions. (See Rosh, Sanhedrin III:6; SA, Hoshen Mishpat Sec. 25 par. 1-2 with commentaries.) The Rosh asserts that a consensus can be overturned by a 'knock out' question or proof. It is not hard to argue that the GRA's excursus on OH sec. 261 par. 3 s.v. she-hu 3.)  I discussed parts of this issue in this article.

4) Shapiro's comment (7 n. 37) comparing Soviet Historical Revisionism and Israeli representations of the creation of the Palestinian Refugee Situation is gratuitous, misleading and inaccurat. It also misrepresents Benny Morris' own findings on the subject (despite the citation of the latter's book). Even the 'official' documentary on the founding of Israel, עמוד האש notes that some Arabs fled on their own and others were encouraged to leave (in most cases for strategic reasons).    

5) I share the author's dismay at the extremes to which euphemisms are employed in order to avoid any sexual connotations (183ff). However, in order to understand the phenomenon, it is necessary to place it in its linguistic context (something that the author fails to do). Hebrew is a very restrained, understated language. Maimonides famously took pride in the fact that Hebrew has no indigenous terms for the male or female sexual organ, and uses euphemisms for the sexual act as well. This avoidance of blatant self-expression, some might call it modesty, is not restricted to matters sexual. Hebrew speakers, for example, do not mention cancer. If someone, God forbid, succumbs to its ravages, he or she is invariably describes as having suffered 'a serious illness' (מחלה קשה) or 'an extended illness' (מחלה ממושכת). In fact, contemporary Hebrew is so understated that an egregious situation is described as a מצב קשה, or a מצב לא פשוט. The phenomenon noted by Shapiro is simply a significant expansion of a very common practice. 

6) While on the subject of sexual censorship, I think it important to note two questions that the author does not address. 1) What is the impact of the blatant sexualization of Western Culture and discourse in creating the response he outlines? 2) As a person who has spent over forty years studying Renaissance Italian Jewry, against the context of Medieval and Early Modern Ashkenazic Jewry, I would be interested in insights as to what set Italian Jewry apart from the rest of European Jews in that nude engravings did not bother them as frontispieces to sacred books. The obverse, to me, seems fairly logical.

7) One final point, which I found personally upsetting, was the citation of my recently departed friend and colleague, Rabbi Dr. Avraham Meir Raffeld, as 'Rafler.' Obviously, the author misread the ד at the end of his name as a ר. The error occurs three times in the book, and I would hope it will be corrected in future editions.

In any event, overall, I found the book illuminating, engaging, and infuriating. At the same time, alongside admiration at the author's erudition, it reinforces the lesson that a sefer should not be judged not only by its cover, but by its content.