Changing the Immutable: How Orthodox Judaism Rewrites Its History, by Marc B. Shapiro
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Changing the Immutable: How Orthodox Judaism Rewrites Its History, by Marc B. Shapiro
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Changing the Immutable focuses on how segments of Judaism's Orthodox society have taken it upon themselves to rewrite the past by covering up and literally cutting out that which does not fit their own world view. For reasons ranging from theological considerations to internal religious politics to changing religious standards, such Jewish self-censorship abounds, and author Marc B. Shapiro discusses examples from each category. His analysis is illustrated by a number of images of the original texts next to their censored versions, together with an explanation of what made them problematic and how the issue was resolved. Shapiro considers the concepts of history that underlie such changes, looking at how some Orthodox historiography sees truth as entirely instrumental. Drawing on the words of leading rabbis, particularly from the haredi world, he shows that what is important here is not historical truth, but a truth that leads to observance and faith in the Sages. He concludes with a discussion of the concept of truth in the Jewish tradition, and when this truth can be altered. Changing the Immutable also reflects on the paradox of a society that regards itself as traditional, but, at the same time, is uncomfortable with some of the inherited tradition, and thus feels the need to create an idealized view of the past. Shapiro considers this in context, detailing precedents in Jewish history dating back to talmudic times. Since the objects of censorship have included such figures as Maimonides, Bahya ibn Pakuda, Rashi, Naphtali Herz Wessely, Moses Mendelssohn, the Hatam Sofer, Samson Raphael Hirsch, A. I. Kook, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, and J. B. Soloveitchik, as well as issues such as Zionism, biblical interpretation, and attitudes to women and non-Jews, Shapiro's book also serves as a study in Jewish intellectual history and how the ideas of one era do not always find favor with later generations. *** "Just two weeks after its publication, Shapiro's book is the number-one bestseller on Amazon in its category - a notable accomplishment for an academic book that includes (untranslated) rabbinic rulings, talmudic texts, and medieval commentaries." -- New Jersey Jewish News, May 2015 *** "This is a fascinating book because Marc Shapiro is a professional historian, and to a historian nothing is more important than the facts, but he is also an Orthodox Jew, and so he understands that for an Orthodox Jew there are some values that trump the recording of the facts." -- Rabbi Jack Riemer, South Florida Jewish Journal, June 2015 *** "Shapiro's new book is a must read for all who want to understand how the current "slide to the right" is radically reforming Judaism to fit within the cacophonous landscape of contemporary values." -- Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz, Jewish Journal, June 2015 *** "Shapiro's scholarship has been so important, in part because of Orthodoxy's own success at covering up inconvenient aspects of its past." -- Ezra Glinter, Forward, July 2015 (also published in Haaretz) *** "One of the most popular and controversial writers in the Modern Orthodox world today, most famous perhaps for publicizing little-known - and often radical - positions in Jewish law and thought." -- Elliot Resnick, The Jewish Press, July 2015 *** "Shapiro takes the reader down a proverbial rabbit hole and into the underbelly of the ?aredi community, an Orwellian-like world of mind control by the clandestine suppression of ideas. Changing the Immutable is an outstanding work, meticulously describing the bubble of "artificial religious truth" surrounding ?aredi communities." -- Fred Reiss Ed.D., San Diego Jewish World, August 2015 *** "The book is a cri de Coeur, suggesting that truth should be a timeless commodity. Yet, the book has another, larger meaning. It outlines how Jewish tradition, a highly decentralized and in a modest way, a plastic entity, is shaped and changed." -- Susan M. Chambré, Jewish Book World, October 2015 *** "...the outstanding product of a master of rabbinic literature and an extraordinarily sharp-eyed and meticulous scholar. The book should be accessible to the widest possible readership, including traditionalists; therefore, one hopes that it will be translated soon into Hebrew." -- Adam Ferziger, Marginalia, a Los Angeles Review of Books, February 2016 [Subject: Jewish Studies, Religious Studies, History]
Changing the Immutable: How Orthodox Judaism Rewrites Its History, by Marc B. Shapiro- Amazon Sales Rank: #220308 in Books
- Published on: 2015-05-01
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.10" h x 1.30" w x 6.20" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 364 pages
About the Author Marc B. Shapiro, PhD, is the Weinberg Chair of Judaic Studies at the Universityof Scranton. He is author of Between the Yeshiva World and ModernOrthodoxy and The Limits of Orthodox Theology, both of which wereNational Jewish Book Award finalists.DEANE H. SHAPIRO, PhD, is Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Irvine. He has served for several years as a member of the Clinical Faculty at Stanford University Medical School and as Dean of Academic Affairs at the Pacific Graduate School of Psychology, and he was cofounder and president of the Institute for the Advancement of Human Behavior. He is also the author/coeditor of more than one hundred scientific and professional publications. His books include Precision Nirvana: Care and Maintenance of the Mind: An Owner's Manual; Meditation: Self-Regulation Strategy and Altered States of Consciousness; and Beyond Health and Normality: Explorations of Exceptional Psychological Well-being.
JOHN ASTIN, PhD, holds a doctorate in health psychology from the University of California, Irvine. He is currently a research fellow at the Stanford Center for Research in "An excellent, comprehensive survey of the state of the art in control theory and therapy."--Ellen McGrath, PhD, Past President, Division of Psychotherapy, Division of Media Psychology, American Psychological Association
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39 of 43 people found the following review helpful. Censors for the sake of Heaven By Paul Shaviv I just spent the recent holiday weekend reading this important and fascinating (if somewhat depressing) book from cover to cover. Marc Shapiro has given us another excellent work. With meticulous documentation he shows a series of different examples of how Orthodox rabbinic works have been altered, censored and mutilated to hide what the original authors wrote or thought (or wore - it includes a few examples of doctored photos), in order to conform with later, and, inevitably, narrower opinions. By removing evidence, the effect is to delegitimize and narrow the range of opinions, beliefs, views and behaviors within the Orthodox Jewish world. Two chapters are devoted to the overall treatment of two major Orthodox thinkers - S.R. Hirsch and Rav Kook - at the hands of subsequent editors. As he points out, his examples - which are many - are, however, only a representative selection. He also discusses the Orthodox view of the "function" of history, and the notion of historical or other truth in Jewish tradition. Although this serves as an explanation of the thought-processes behind the revisionist activity, it also strongly suggest that there is an unbridgeable gap between "history" and "Orthodox 'history'". Marc Shapiro has the gift of being an excellent, clear and easy-to-read writer. An excellent book for anyone interested in Jewish history and trends and currents in the Orthodox world.
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful. A penetrating and insightful read By Amazon Customer Having been a reader of Marc Shapiro’s writings for about twenty years, I’ve often been made to wonder about what motivates and animates Jewish thinkers to do and say the things that they do. His current book on Jewish censorship and revisionism places the question of motivation and psychology front and center.Shapiro is, as always, encyclopedic in the scope of the sources he brings down. His observations on some outlandish forms of Jewish censorship and revisionism are often wry and witty, with minimal personal editorial and without being either cynical or unsympathetic to the subject matter. The one possible slant to which his book lends itself, of which Shapiro himself is aware, is that in accumulating every possible example of Jewish religious censorship and revisionism one could walk away with the impression that there are no Jewish authorities that defend being sincere and transparent, which of course is not the case.There is a certain charm to Shapiro’s writings, as in how in the midst of a much broader discussion, Shapiro will share an embarrassingly true but conveniently forgotten insight, such as the fact that over hundred years ago the majority of Jews started (and ended) Shabbos later than they do nowadays, a practice that at present is rare and is deemed scandalous.While modern scholarship would not condone any form of censorship, when reading Shapiro one can nevertheless distinguish between more excusable forms of hiding the truth versus completely inexcusable ones. At the excusable end of the spectrum are: censoring passages from non-Jews that, if revealed, could endanger the Jewish community; hiding awkward revelations about the personal failings or peccadilloes of a religious sage, especially sexual ones; genuinely believing a falsehood, without any ulterior motive and then propagating it; censoring gratuitously abusive language between respected scholars; the altering of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook’s writings by his handlers, for fear that some of his ideas would alienate his intended readership. In all these cases we can sense the imperfect choices being presented between on the one hand being completely transparent but on the other hand wanting to either exercise common sense or display good taste.What appears, however, to be altogether inexcusable is the constant theological posturing that goes on in the Haredi world, to give the impression of a form of religious orthodoxy that is consistent throughout all time and space. Examples where historical photos are altered to either make Orthodox women from the past appear to be dressed more modestly than they actually were or to color a skull cap onto a rabbi’s bare head are only a small sampling of it. Much larger and more damning are the chapters devoted to Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch and the aforementioned Rabbi Kook. While Hirsch’s philosophy and the community he advocated were forcibly made to appear more palatable to Haredi sensibilities, Kook, once the darling of the Orthodox world, had been rendered a persona non grata. This persistent practice of disfiguring history by making it more homogenous is absolute cultural vandalism. The censors in these cases have found it expedient to lie and cover up numerous facts, all in order to control the religious experience of the masses, to ensure uniform thought and practice. As Shapiro himself points out, people in power, by lying and hiding the truth, have predetermined how Judaism should have looked historically (evidence to the contrary be damned) and in the process they have chosen to be the judges over the great luminaries that preceded them.And in no way do the Haredim have a monopoly over this sort of censorship, though they are the most persistent practitioners of it. Shapiro gives examples of censorship in other branches of Judaism. And it’s clear to any reader that rewriting the past is a standard practice in any sort of orthodoxy, whether it be political or ideological in nature, whenever the facts as they are do not conveniently corroborate what people “need” to believe at present.Shapiro’s last chapter, which deals with the Jewish literature on when it is permissible to lie and to deceive is the most painful to read through. Shapiro frames the discussion in terms of the overarching problem: the Torah is replete with statements to the effect that it is important to be truthful and that lying is evil. Many rabbinical sermons are in fact delivered in which Judaism is couched as an unrelenting search for truth. How then to defend the frequent practice by religious publishers of deceiving their readership? The answers on the whole are of an extremely legal, technical nature, arbitrary in their application and completely inelegant. And even worse than the inorganic loopholes that various religious figures relied upon to allow themselves to be untruthful is a statement by Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler. In line with the thinking of certain secular philosophers, Dessler redefines the truth to be whatever is most expedient, whichever statement most practically achieves a desired outcome, i.e., extracting greater religious observance and devotion from the masses. The intellectual acrobatics Dessler uses to justify being deceptive come off as flippant, not too clever and disingenuous.The notion that the greatest truth is whatever achieves a desired outcome begs the question: Isn’t there a greater truth to strive for than achieving mass obedience? Especially in an age in which orthodoxies of all sorts are on their way out, what exactly are we sacrificing in order to achieve uniform behavior? People en masse are leaving organized religion, especially Western organized religion –Judaism is being hit especially hard - and are pursuing more experiential/less dogmatic strains of spirituality such as Easter religion. There’s a good reason that Jews as a whole are over-represented among the numbers of Westerners who flock to either trendy new age spiritual movements or to Buddhism and Hinduism. Instead of addressing the spiritual poverty engendered by un-self aware orthodox dogmatism, we’re expending precious mental energy on hosting a beauty pageant of sorts, on upholding appearances of piety. In the end, Orthodox Judaism can end up becoming self selecting – retaining the traditionalists who would have naturally gravitated towards it anyway, while losing all of the sincere seekers who are genuinely curious and trying to understand.Shapiro had me considering the subject matter from different vantage points. What, for instance, drives people to want to believe something to be true? I remember meeting a religious man a few years back, whose father was among the Jews who was saved during World War II by Sugihara, the courageous Japanese diplomat who defiantly gave out numerous visas to save Jewish lives. With complete conviction, the man related to me how later in life Sugihara converted to Judaism. Of course, nothing of the sort happened and I politely kept quiet. I sensed how the man very much wanted to believe that Sugihara was Jewish, as if a goy altruistically saving thousands of Jewish lives weren’t good enough. As with other urban legends, people find comfort in believing that certain things are true.Urban legends, for course, are a universal phenomenon, not at all unique to Orthodox Jews, and people tend towards being suggestible. And it is sometimes hard to get at what is really true versus what we wish to be true. With the internet, however, becoming more ubiquitous and especially with the advent of web sites such as Snopes that devote themselves to debunking false legends the likelihood of people continuing to believe a bubbe meise are smaller. The question is whether this trend towards greater transparency will have the same sort of impact in the Haredi world. If so will the censors in Haredi world continue to be able to spin their personal story to their own liking or will they need to adjust their spin for an evermore skeptical public?And what can we say about the cynical mindset that encourages censorship? In a world that is moving towards greater transparency and towards empowering individuals more and more, censors are elitists who continue to believe that people “can’t handle the truth.” It is possible that there are facts that are too damning and too overwhelming for people to process, but when people are constantly infantilized and lied to, it can become a self fulfilling prophecy by which the public can no longer stand to hear anything remotely threatening to their beliefs.I highly encourage anyone interested in the subject of Judaism and its relationship to the truth to read Shapiro’s well written book.
15 of 17 people found the following review helpful. Dr. Shapiro reveals eye-opening facts about how the rabbis and others changed Judaism By Israel Drazin Since time began, since the more intelligent men and women realized they had ideas they could not share with others, yet they had to speak, they learnt to lie.Highly respected philosophers did so. The pagan Greek Plato called what they said “noble lies.” The Jewish Maimonides named them “essential truths.” The Moslem Ibn Tufayl gave the lies no name, but wrote a book describing why it is necessary to hide the truth. The Roman Plutarch hid the truth in his famed history “Parallel Lives,” and gave an idealized version the ancient heroes “with the intention of conveying moral examples to imitate or avoid.” They knew that the lies they taught the masses were not facts, but teachings that advance what they considered to be good, what we could call “pedagogical truths,” focusing on education, or “orphaned truths,” unrelated to real truths, or “pious myths.”As many other philosophers, Maimonides recognized that intelligent people, leaders, clergy, philosophers, and teachers of all kinds need to teach people lies – such as, God spoke to prophets, you will be resurrected, pray and God will help you, this is what God demands, God will punish you unless you do this, there will be a messianic time when all evil will cease – to make people feel good about themselves, feel secure, “know” that there will be a better time, behave properly, provide stability, preserve order, and teach and promote values. Maimonides told readers of his Guide that he will place both his true ideas and “essential truths” in his Guide so that the common people will find notions in it that support their beliefs while intelligent people will be able to sift the true teachings from the dross.Even the Bible seemed to sanction lies. Abraham told his servants and his son Isaac that he and Isaac will return from offering a sacrifice while he had every intention when he said this that he would offer Isaac as a sacrifice to God. Jacob misled his father Isaac claiming he was Esau the son that blind Isaac wanted to bless. Moses attempted to persuade Pharaoh to let the Israelites leave Egypt saying they would return after three days. The biblical book Chronicles suppressed the truth contained in the earlier biblical books; they retold the earlier-told tales in a manner that erased mistakes made by biblical heroes, such as King David’s adultery and murder of Bathsheba’s husband. The Chronicle version is “actually far from a detached recording of what happened in the past.” And there are many more examples of dishonesty in the Bible. Abraham ibn Ezra states: “Our sages explained this beautifully, for ‘a prudent man conceals shame.’”The Talmud recognized a concept halakhah ve’ein morin ken, meaning that although something is technically permitted, the rabbis do not inform the masses of the leniency out of fear that using this permission could have negative ramifications. Nachmanides (1194-1270) contends that this concept is in the Torah which states “It is the glory of God to conceal a thing,”The rabbis lied and continue to lie for many reasons, such as the interest of peace, to stop people from sinning, to avoid embarrassment, to prevent injury, to collect money to support the study of Torah, to help feed a poor man, to improve a person’s chance of marriage, when one has a mental reservation that what he is saying is not true, for educational reasons, and if the lie leads to a good result. Each of these reasons is subjective; one rabbi may feel that the lie is appropriate while another might strongly disagree. It is as if the rabbi is saying, I can lie if I think it is proper to do so and if I feel that it is better for the person to believe my lie rather than know the truth.Marc B. Shapiro points this out and shows how this phenomenon continued from ancient time to righteous Jews today, including famed rabbis who lie to other Jews. His book is superb, scholarly, comprehensible, well-documented with copious supportive notes, very readable, and above all eye-opening. He shows that all too many rabbis in the Orthodox community rewrite the past by snipping out of books of prior rabbis and scholars, even well-respected ones, that which does not fit into their personal world-view. They “insist on viewing the past through the religious needs of the present,” erasing the liberal opinions of the past to obligate others to follow their personal notions of what is right. Organizations such as ArtScroll distort the interpretations of Bible commentators in their ArtScroll commentaries when what is said contradicts their understanding, as they deleted the “offending view” of Rashi’s grandson Rashbam on Genesis 1:5 that in the Bible the day began in the morning. These rabbis are turn their backs to what is true when they are convinced that what was said would lead readers to observances they dislike. Paradoxically, rabbis who make these changes consider themselves traditional, even hereidi, ultra-Orthodox, men who decry the changes wrought by the Reform movement; yet they too are uncomfortable with the past, the history of Judaism and its practices, and feel the need the revise what is most sacred to them, what the Torah actually says and Judaism.They conceal the conviction of many sages that parts of the Five Books of Moses” were composed after Moses’ death, such as Abraham ibn Ezra and the famed pietistic Rabbi Judah HeHasid who held this post-Mosaic view. They hide the fact that the codifier Moses Isserles felt that it is permissible to drink non-Jewish wine. They censored Joseph Karo’s “Shulchan Arukh” where he states that the “kapporot” ceremony on the day before Yom Kippur in which people transferred their sins to a chicken was a “foolish custom.” They erased the opinion of Rabbi Hayim of Volozhin quoting the Vilna Gaon “that in matters of halakhah one should not give up one’s independent judgment, even if that means opposing a ruling in the “Shulchan Aruch.” They excised the statement of Rabbi Joseph Messas (1892-1974) from his “Mayim Chayim” where he ruled that married women have no obligation to cover their hair, a decision also held by Rabbi Joseph Hayim (1832-1909) and many others. They conceal the ancient decisions by respected rabbis such as Rabbenu Tam, Rabbi Solomon Ganzfred in his “Kitsur Shulchan Arukh,” and others that the “shekiah,” sunset for the purposes of when the Sabbath starts, takes place much later than what is usually regarded as sunset, that the Shabbat begins when it is dark about an hour after the current practice. They obscured the ruling of the highly respected codifier Rabbi Yehiel Mikhel Epstein (1829-1908) that one is allowed to turn on electric lights on festivals. They expunged the opinion of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch that everyone does not need to devote his life to Torah study and the opinion of Maimonides in his Introduction to his opus “Mishneh Torah” that Jews need not study the Talmud. They erased the Vilna Gaon’s belief that it is only a custom for males to cover their heads and that in Orthodox families in Germany, male Jews only covered their heads when at prayer or saying a blessing. They painted head coverings on the pictures of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, and many others who did not wear a head covering in college. They hide that Rabbi Kook, the first Chief Rabbi of Palestine as well as Maimonides taught that people need to exercise.Also, hereidi Jews as well as rabbis who are afraid to deviate from them will not mention the words breast, gay, homosexual, rape, or insert the words in their newspapers, and even exclude pictures of women, including that of Hillary Clinton, even though this is not prohibited in the Torah and was not the practice in ancient Judaism.These are just some of the many examples that Dr. Shapiro gives in his excellent book (with a couple that I added) of how rabbis and others have changed and are continuing to change the immutable Torah.We could, of course add many more to the couple of hundred example offered by Dr. Shapiro, for Dr. Shapiro notes that he is not giving a complete list of violations. For example, many rabbis today do not reveal that the behaviors they are advocating in their sermons is not taught in the Torah. Also, when these rabbis sermonize today and base their sermons on the “fact” that the “medrish” says such and such, the rabbis do not reveal that there are multiple Midrashim, each saying something somewhat different than the others, and the position they are advocating is not held by other Midrashim.
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