Changing the Immutable: How Orthodox Judaism Rewrites Its History by Marc B. Shapiro, Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, Portland, Oregon; ISBN 978-1-904113-60-7 ©2015, $19.95, p. 285, plus bibliography and index
By Fred Reiss, Ed.D.
WINCHESTER, California — Changing the Immutable by Marc B. Shapiro, who holds the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Chair in Judaic Studies at the University of Scranton, Pennsylvania, is a study of the censorship and deception promulgated by Ḥaredi, or Ultra-Orthodox, Judaism, a lifestyle similar to the Pennsylvania Dutch— living in cloistered communities, shunning contact with the outside world, men wearing black suits and wide-brimmed black hats and modest dressing for women.
Opening with an example of this dishonesty, which gained international notoriety, Shapiro shows two photographs of the President and Vice President of the United States, members of the cabinet, and military and civilian advisors, including two women, watching a live feed of the assault on Bin Laden’s compound. In the first, both women are visible; in the second, the only two women present, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and counterterrorism director Audrey Tomason, were digitally removed before being published in Di Tsaytung, an Orthodox Jewish weekly Yiddish-language newspaper, in disregard of a White House note accompanying the photo saying that the picture could not be altered.
The paper later apologized in a statement asserting that it does not publish photographs of women because “its readers ‘believe that women should be appreciated for who they are and what they do, not for what they look like, and the Jewish laws of modesty are an expression of respect for women, not the opposite.’” According to Shapiro, the definition of modesty for ḥaredi women is not static and has become more stringent in recent years, requiring them to refrain from wearing jewelry in public and telling them “in minute detail how high a women’s shirt button’s must be, how she must carry a handbag, etc.”
Shapiro expresses concern about Di Tsaytung’s hypocrisy, whose editorial elites know that two women were in the photo and by removing them without comment to their readers, deceive them. Moreover, the editors of Di Tsaytung are well aware of many existing photographs containing ḥaredi women and in falsifying the photo fully grasp that they are being disingenuous and perpetuating the lie that “modest” ḥaredi women do not have their pictures taken.
This deception is just one of many carefully analyzed by Shapiro, who perceives ḥaredi censorship and its cover-up as the overarching problem. Among the motives for suppression are reputation of an esteemed ḥaredi leader and his family, fear that certain knowledge might lead to negative consequences, and political and theological correctness. Some of their methods consist of editing or expunging unwanted material from texts, altering photographs, withholding knowledge from the general ḥaredi community, placing conditions on textual studies, opposing vernacular translations, and banning books outright.
Contemporary ḥaredi elites—translators, editors, publishers, and authoritative rabbis—are not unique in their censorship, but continue a long line of redacting and expunging “uncomfortable” theologies, commentaries, and rabbinic rulings (responsa); thereby altering or hiding words in such a manner that no one seeing the material has any idea of the censorship, and this, according to Shapiro, is exactly what the censors want. The edited texts are not from “small Jewish potatoes” either. They include the Talmud (for instance, we know that a sentence was removed from Berakhot 63a, stating that even thieves pray for success), and the writings of Maimonides, the Vilna Gaon, and the Baal Shem Tov.
Halakhah, Jewish law, is also not immune from the heavy-handed editing of these religious leaders. Shapiro tells the story of a responsa from Rabbi Moses Isserles (1520-1572) to the Jews of Moravia, a religiously observant group, with a history of drinking wine produced by non-Jews for religious purposes, a ceremonial taboo. Isserles found a way around this forbidden act by arguing “there is no longer a concern that the wine would have been in an idolatrous ritual.” A number of later rabbis, with a common concern that this responsa would eventually lead to the regular consumption of wine produced by non-Jews, omitted the responsa from republished books of Isserles’ responsa beginning in 1711.
The great nineteenth century Orthodox German Rabbi Sampson Raphael Hirsch (1808-1888) and the former Chief Rabbi of Israel Abraham Isaac Kook (1865-1935), arguably one of the greatest Jewish scholars of the twentieth century, each has a dedicated chapter. Shapiro gives a vivid description of how, at present, Hirsch is part of the pantheon of ḥaredi sages deserving of respect and admiration, but only because of redactions from editors’ pens expunging his thoughts on the positive impact of having one foot in the religious world and one in the secular world. Kook never made it into the pantheon, even though his own supporters edited his material to make the pro-Zionist writings and admiration for the likes of Spinoza and Mendelssohn, both disdained by the ḥaredi, more palatable. Shapiro notes that “Kook’s opponents will never recognize him as a religious authority.”
Changing the Immutable offers many vivid examples of behind-closed-door decisions of whom to edit and how. One interesting example is Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1902-1994), the last Lubavitcher Rebbe. Pictures of Schneerson, existing from his days at the University of Berlin and from his passport, show he is not wearing a kipah (head covering). When the Orthodox movement published his autobiography in 1997, Schneerson, in a doctored photo, had a kipah on his head.
Public displays of affection are summarily rejected by ḥaredi, so it comes as no surprise that censoring of sexual matters in the Israeli ḥaredi community edges on the absurd by denying basic information on breast cancer, for example, as the word “breast” never appears in ḥaredi publications. (Some American ḥaredi newspapers have covered this topic.) Likewise, Bible translations and biblical commentaries referring to sexual matters are not put into print unless euphemisms or circumlocutions are substituted for forbidden words. Only ḥaredi who can read the original Hebrew or Rashi script know the true meaning of the text. One of Shapiro’s telling examples refers to Rashi’s commentary on Genesis 3:1. About this verse, Rashi writes in Hebrew “the serpent saw Adam and Eve ‘naked and engaging in sexual intercourse before the eyes of all, and he desired her.’” Directly opposite in English, Rosenbaum and Silbermann, wanting to sell their books to the ḥaredi, translate Rashi as “he saw them naked and ashamed and he coveted her.”
Shapiro also scrutinizes ḥaredi censorship applied to secular works mentioning non-Jews, Ḥasidim, and Zionism before addressing the question that permeates Changing the Immutable: “Is the truth really that important?” To answer, he refers to biblical verses such as “You shall keep far from speaking untruth” (Ex. 23:7); the Talmud, “The world stands on three things: on truth, on justice, and on peace” (Mishnah Avot 1:18); and scholarly letters and responsa, which differ from each other and confirm a lack of rabbinic consensus on the requirement to always telling the truth.
Censorship is everywhere: translation from one language to another invariably demands the translator to find suitable corresponding words conveying both the connotative and denotative meanings of the original. Conservative prayer books, for example, notoriously substitute inaccurate English translations across from the original Hebrew. The same can be said about biblical translations and haggadot, books containing the ritual of the Seder. A distinguishing feature between this form of censorship and the ones exhaustively scrutinized by Shapiro is that non-ḥaredi readers have multiple ways of obtaining information. (Most recently, ḥaredi leadership has banned ownership of a Smartphone.)
Concluding that ḥaredi restrictions are just another misguided application of the old maxim, “the means justify the ends,” is easily defended. If this is the case, however, then the ḥaredi have lots of justification beginning with Abraham’s lie when he planned to sacrifice Isaac, “And Abraham said to his servant, ‘You stay here with the donkey, and I and the boy will go up there and pray and will return to you.” (Gen. 22:5).
There is sufficient rabbinic basis to believe that lies are permitted for the greater good and to keep the community from sinning. Shapiro suggests that the mindset for censorship might be summed up by the line “You can’t stand the truth” from the movie A Few Good Men. Another approach might be the line from the 1994 version of the movie A Miracle on 34th Street: “Is it better to tell a lie that brings a smile, or tell a truth that brings a tear?” The conclusion I draw from Changing the Immutable is that the ḥaredi leadership understands that deception is despicable and morally wrong, but sometimes it is useful.
Shapiro takes the reader down a proverbial rabbit hole and into the underbelly of the ḥaredi community, an Orwellian-like world of mind control by the clandestine suppression of ideas. It is a world in which the verses of sacred texts and the words of deceased Jewish sages are weighted in a scale of merit and demerit. Those found worthy can have their works published unmolested, but those found unworthy must have their words pass through the fire of censorship, to be either purified, or devoured, by it. Changing the Immutable is an outstanding work, meticulously describing the bubble of “artificial religious truth” surrounding ḥaredi communities.
*
Dr. Fred Reiss is a retired public and Hebrew school teacher and administrator. He is the author of The Standard Guide to the Jewish and Civil Calendars; Public Education in Camden, NJ: From Inception to Integration; Ancient Secrets of Creation: Sepher Yetzira, the Book that Started Kabbalah, Revealed; and a fiction book, Reclaiming the Messiah. You may comment to him via fred.reiss@sdjewishworld.com.