ArtScroll's Assault on Truth

Mesorah's ArtScroll publications tend to elicit strong and diverse reactions.  Their multiple imprints encompass a vast range of translations and original works by numerous authors, so the content and writing quality naturally varies considerably.  More fundamentally, however, ArtScroll's substance and tone often reflect a particular religious outlook which will either attract or irritate, depending on the reader.  

But anyone who values truth and integrity -- regardless of any other consideration, including communal affiliation and religious ideology -- must protest ArtScroll's latest transgression in a now-familiar pattern of editorial dishonesty. 

First, there was the misrepresentation of Rashi's commentary on Song of Songs.  Rashi takes a hybrid approach to Shir Ha-Shirim, interpreting the text both literally and allegorically.  But ArtScroll truncated Rashi's introduction to his commentary, in which he clearly outlines this methodology, and ignored entirely his commentary's literal layer.  Anyone who uses the Stone Chumash for an English translation and commentary on the Song of Songs is a victim of ArtScroll's distortion of Rashi.

Then came the blatant censorship of R. Shlomo Yosef Zevin's Ha-Moadim Ba-Halakhah. Rabbi Zevin made an offhand remark expressing gratitude for the State of Israel.  The line was excised from ArtScroll's translation.

Most recently, in a shameless act of textual fraud and an insult to the intelligence and integrity of bnei Torah (and to Rashbam himself), ArtScroll has released a censored version of Rashbam's commentary on the Torah within their new punctuated edition of Mikraot Gedolot.  As Marc B. Shapiro has shown, ArtScroll concluded that parts of the commentary are unworthy of publication, no doubt for ideological reasons.  For example, they censored sections of the commentary to Gen. 1:4-5, in which Rashbam argues that night follows day in the plain reading of the verses.  No explanation was provided for the omissions.  

In the financial world, fraud results in regulatory fines, bans from the industry, and sometimes imprisonment.  Should we hold those who publish fraudulent versions of religious texts to a lower ethical standard?

Please contact ArtScroll to request an explanation and to demand that this fraud be corrected in the next printing.

Postscript:

ArtScroll responded to what must have been several complaints.  Here is Marc Shapiro's analysis of the response.

Past Imperfect

For traditional communities, the past is normative. The past, rather than the present, is the guide to daily life. As a standard-bearer of the past, the traditionalist may even question the very legitimacy of the present: Leaving aside technological advances, what moral or spiritual value can modernity offer compared to the timeless legacy of the past?

Religious traditions especially, which are by nature highly conservative, judge new trends by their conformance to time-honored ways of life. Intellectual innovation, to be sure, may be encouraged, as long as it remains within the boundaries of tradition. In our own society, for example, a hallmark of Talmud scholarship has long been the ability to formulate novel legal analyses. But their implications are normally theoretical. Regarding practical matters, custom rules (there are notable exceptions among halakhists of great stature; the Vilna Gaon, for example, often ruled against common practice based on Talmudic sources).

Still, we have been able observe the evolution of attitudes toward religious tradition, and changes to the tradition itself, within a single lifetime. Over the last few decades, while its religious observance has become stricter, Orthodox society has increasingly turned to texts, rather than prevailing custom, for guidance. This trend has been thoroughly defined and interpreted in Haym Soloveitchik's 1994 Tradition essay, “Rupture and Reconstruction.” Soloveitchik contrasts the pre-war European Jewish religious culture -- a “mimetic” society where behavior was transmitted by example and imitation -- with the more recent text-based culture. While previous generations absorbed the rules of Jewish observance from the home, street, and synagogue, much of Orthodox society has now come to rely on books, thought to be more authoritative and reliable sources of Halakhah. Among other factors, this represents a desire to restore the more religiously authentic world of Europe before the Holocaust, based on a reconstituted image -- supposedly captured in halakhic texts -- of what it was really like.

It would seem that tradition itself should view this phenomenon favorably. After all, what we are describing is an ostensibly deeper and more meticulous commitment to tradition. What could be truer to the traditionalist than a religious life restored to its original state, to a period of history unweakened by dislocation and acculturation? In a religious context, how could the old-world ways of our great-grandparents and grandparents not be superior to those of our parents, which were often diluted by compromise?

But some of these assumptions do not hold up under scrutiny. What many perceive as restoration -- a more rigorous observance derived from the past -- may be, in fact, religious innovation.

In “Minhagei Lita: Customs of Lithuanian Jewry,” the late Rabbi Menachem Mendel (Manuel) Poliakoff of Baltimore sets out to correct misconceptions about the yeshiva culture of pre-war Lithuania. Rabbi Poliakoff, a participant in that culture, studied at the Telshe Yeshiva during the 1930’s. He cites several modern religious practices wrongly assumed to have been followed in the great Lithuanian yeshivot and in their surrounding communities. For example, the wide adoption of the Upsherren custom (allowing a boy’s hair to grow uncut until the age of three) and the “glatt kosher” standard (based on a kosher meat stricture), he says, are recent innovations -- unknown in Europe or confined to particular communities -- that gained currency only after World War II. He also points to rulings of R. Israel Meir Kagan in the “Mishnah Berurah” -- today considered the most authoritative code -- which were never followed in Lithuania, or even in the author’s hometown, despite his great prestige.

If certain customs which appear restorative are in fact innovative, we are also witnessing in broad segments of Orthodox society the acceptance of practices which are undeniably new. Bat Mitzvah and Simhat Bat celebrations, for example, were unknown in Ashkenazic Orthodoxy a generation ago (Simhat Bat has some precedent among Sephardim). These innovations are drawn primarily from the present; they are the product of egalitarian notions of gender and greater public visibility of women -- both modern phenomena -- and regarded as consistent, if not continuous, with tradition.

Under the right conditions, tradition can successfully assimilate the best modern values. That is one way to leave our children a more perfect past.

Clouds of glory, clouds of honor

That future generations may know that I made the children of Israel live in booths (sukkot) when I brought them out of the land of Egypt  -- Leviticus 23:43.

‘Booths’ --  clouds of honor (ananei kavod) -- Rashi.

Every year on the first night of Sukkot, I was taught from a young age that the Sukkah -- especially the sekhakh, the Sukkah's ceiling -- represents something otherworldly. The structure in which our family dined was meant to evoke the divine clouds that sheltered the Israelites in the desert.

But, in fact, the definition of “booths” was the subject of debate by the Tannaitic Sages. One opinion took them to be real huts, erected for shelter from the sun; the other, in a metaphorical reading of the verse from Leviticus, identified the booths with the biblical “cloud-pillar” -- also known in the Talmud and Midrash as “clouds of honor” -- that guided and protected the Jews throughout the exodus.

It may seem far-fetched to read “booths” as divine clouds. “Clouds” and “booths” are hardly synonymous. One could also argue, on the other hand, that the literal interpretation is undermined by the fact that this reference in Leviticus is the only explicit record of booth-dwelling by the Israelites. The heavenly cloud-pillar, in contrast, appears repeatedly in the Torah from Exodus onward.

In fact, the link between sukkot and ananei kavod is supported by two separate streams of textual evidence. First, there are several instances where the Bible uses the word sukkah -- literally, a covering or canopy -- in poetic references to God’s presence, hidden behind a screen of clouds. Furthermore, the phrase “when I brought them out of the land of Egypt” suggests some connection between the sukkot in this verse and events which took place during the early history of the Exodus. Sukkot, as it happens, is also a place name. As recorded in Exodus (13:20-22) and noted there by the Jerusalem Targum, Sukkot -- the Israelites’ first station outside of Egypt -- was where the divine clouds first appeared. So, in a non-literal but strongly suggested reading of Leviticus, the sukkot in which God sheltered the Israelites were none other than the divine clouds which first accompanied them at Sukkot.

If we dwell in booths on Sukkot to recall the divine clouds of the desert, the question becomes why this holiday is the appropriate time for such a commemoration.

Throughout the Bible, clouds are a common manifestation of God’s presence. At the revelation on Sinai, Moses disappears into a cloud on the mountain. In the desert, the cloud-pillar guides the Israelites and descends regularly either to speak with Moses or to mark the next station. God’s glory (kavod) appears in a cloud at the dedication of the Tabernacle and again at the dedication of Solomon’s Temple, in each case preventing entry into the sanctuary. This cloud is not an ethereal mist; it is a tangible presence that can be overwhelming.

But the word kavod has a dual meaning in the Bible; it is alternatively translated -- at least in the King James Version -- as “glory” or “honor,” depending on the context. Generally, “glory” is used to describe the divine presence, whereas “honor” denotes respect shown to humans. This is best illustrated in the KJV's rendering of a single verse in which kavod is used twice, in both senses: "It is the glory (kavod) of God to conceal a thing, but the honor (kavod) of kings is to search out a matter" (Proverbs 25:2).

The divine clouds of Sukkot -- identified by Rashi with the ananei kavod of the Sages -- are of a different nature than the clouds of glory. The Sages understood that there was not only one cloud-pillar, but seven -- six in each direction to shield the camp and one to lead the way forward. A midrash compares the clouds with a bridal canopy prepared by the groom, and goes so far as to associate them with imagery from Song of Songs (2:6) -- “His left hand was under my head, his right arm embraced me.” These clouds are intimate and nurturing; they envelop and protect as would a parent or a lover. The clouds of Sukkot are clouds of honor, rather than clouds of glory.

Sukkot is celebrated in the wake of the Days of Awe, a season of encountering divine glory. On Rosh Hashanah, we acknowledge God’s majesty over creation and His role in history. The shofar invokes the clouds of Mt. Sinai, where God’s glory was most clearly manifest; the shofarot prayer begins, “You revealed yourself in your cloud of glory on your holy mountain.” And on Yom Kippur, we confront the finitude of human life and contrast our physical and moral flimsiness with an infinite, glorious God.

When Sukkot arrives, our relationship with the divine is transformed. While we remain awestruck and thankful for the fruit harvest, yet another sign of divine glory, we are primarily preoccupied with immediate and distinctly human anxieties related to the imminent rainy season and the coming onset of the cold, dark winter. On Sukkot, we beg for human honor and human dignity -- not to be overpowered by divine glory, but to be sheltered under divine wings.  Under the Sukkah’s canopy, God honors man.

Good Neighbors?

Please see my essay on religion and science in the Jewish Standard.

Dairy on Shavuot - Jewish Standard 5/30/14

Please see my article in the Jewish Standard on this topic, a re-worked version of an earlier post.

Mystery and Magic

Jewish biblical exegesis operates on multiple levels. Rashi, who nearly a millennium later remains the most influential exegete, employed two methods of interpretation: Peshat, which is concerned with the plain sense of Scripture, and derash, which adds content to the written Torah from the midrashim of the Sages. Both approaches seek the “true” meaning of the text.

But while peshat takes the Torah’s words at face value, reading them in context and in a straightforward manner, derash amplifies the text and can offer greater depth of meaning, especially when Scripture, as written, is ambiguous or lacks detail.

Beyond peshat and derash exegesis, there is also an ancient Jewish tradition of esoteric or mystical interpretation. Such an approach to Scripture looks beneath the surface of the text -- even deeper than derash -- for hidden meanings related to the nature of God and the metaphysical world. Nahmanides, for example, may explain a passage on three different levels, using peshat, derash, and kabbalah.

Just as there are multiple ways to read the Bible, both literal and nonliteral, there are a variety of approaches to comprehending the nature of the universe and the nature of man. While ancient man was awed by seemingly supernatural forces surrounding him, modern science sees a world governed by physical laws and mathematical formulas. For the most part, scientists “read” nature with an eye toward the peshat, taking the world literally and without embellishment; Galileo famously stated that the “Book of Nature” -- the universe -- is written in mathematics. With respect to man’s inner world, some neuroscientists and evolutionary psychologists view the mind as the sum of the brain’s electrochemical activity; they know nothing of the soul. The very origin of the human mind, in their view, may have been an evolutionary fluke, if an extraordinary one.

Since the Scientific Revolution, we have acquired a firm grasp on the Book of Nature’s peshat. The universe follows predictable rules that are better understood with each passing year. But religious people try to read nature’s text at the level of derash; some may even find mystical meaning between the lines of physical law. This is not to say that scientists cannot see beyond the peshat of the universe. Perhaps even more than non-scientists, they have the means to appreciate the mysteries within nature. Albert Einstein, no stranger to cosmic mathematics and certainly not religious in a theistic sense, spoke of his own profound sense of the mystery lying behind the world we perceive and, as a result of this experience, considered himself a religious man. Modern cosmology, as much as it has already revealed, continues to evince further mystery. Mystery is the derash behind nature’s peshat.

But we should not confuse mystery with magic (even mysticism does not imply a magical worldview). Man – even modern man – marvels with wonder at the world’s mysteries, and this experience may cause him to fear and love God. But humanity no longer has any use for magic, performed by primitive people to exercise control over the gods and nature. In fact, magical thinking and practice is an affront to modern man’s dignity -- his divine image -- represented by the intellectual and technological progress he has achieved in the last few centuries.

In our own religious community, we have witnessed an unfortunate resurgence of magic and superstition, often masquerading as religion and cynically preying on the desperate. Miracle workers, astrologers, faith healers, and purveyors of blessings (for a small donation, they will magically produce a shidduch), have become an increasingly familiar presence in our religious institutions. “Bible Codes” – for example, generating the names of historical figures from equidistant letter sequences -- continue to be promoted, as if the text of the Torah were a word search puzzle or a Ouija Board (those with genuine interest in word magic can purchase the Milton Bradley version). While such efforts may come from a desire to bolster faith – especially among young people – in our skeptical age, they are misguided and will ultimately fail.

The Torah consists of peshat, derash and, for some, hidden mystical meaning, but it is not a magical text; God has much better ways to impress us. And while the universe remains a source of mystery, with a peshat and dersah of its own, it is not magic. The Book of Nature is written in a different language.