The Rema [confronted] a situation where Jews were drinking non-kosher wine in Moravia. The water was not very healthy, so people started drinking wine. The question was: Can this be justified? In his responsum, Rav Moshe Isserles is very upset that they’re drinking the wine. However, he attempts to justify them ex post facto so that they would not be viewed as sinners.
The censors, though, were worried that people would see the teshuvah and say, “We can drink non-Jewish wine,” so they removed it. It was a valid concern because Israel Silverman from the JTS actually used Isserles’s responsum to justify drinking non-Jewish wine today. He was attacked for that – and rightly so – because this was only an ex post facto justification.
The speech of the Belzer Rebbe’s brother in 1944 when the Rebbe and his family escaped Hungary.
He said the Rebbe wasn’t leaving because there was anything to be afraid of, and that the people don’t need to be worried. When the drasha was reprinted in 1967 that was cut out – for obvious reasons, because the Nazis did move in to Budapest and destroyed as much of the Jewish community as they could.
Rav Kook’s many haskamos.
In his day, Rav Kook was the greatest writer of haskamot and pretty much everyone in the Lithuanian Torah world wanted his approbation. Over the years, though, Rav Kook has fallen out of favor and therefore there’s a problem: If Rav Kook is not an acceptable authority, what do you make of the fact that all these great rabbis were proud to have his haskama grace their works?
The solution has been a systematic campaign to wipe out Rav Kook’s haskamot and wipe him out from the Torah world. There’s been more censorship with Rav Kook than really any other figure.
Interestingly, you write that Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv – regarded as the gadol hador in the haredi world at the turn of century – was not happy with this censorship and that Rav Kook was even mesader kiddushin at his wedding.
He was mesader kiddushin at Rav Elyashiv’s and Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach’s weddings. They looked toward him as the leader…and as far as I know, Rav Elyashiv never changed his view of Rav Kook. I’m not saying he agreed with everything he stood for, but Rav Elyashiv’s family was in Rav Kook’s camp at the time of the great dispute, as was Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach’s family.
In light of the Torah’s admonition to “stay far away from falsehood,” what do you make of all these examples of censorship? Isn’t it dishonest to rewrite history or remove passages in books that one dislikes or is uncomfortable with?
Truth is a value, but there are other values as well. We know that if a bride is not beautiful, the Gemara rules you can say she’s beautiful because there are other values more important than absolute truth.
But this opens up the door to censors. So, for example, if you’re worried that Rav Kook’s haskamot will lead people to conclude that he’s a great sage and therefore it’s OK to be a Zionist [you will give yourself] a green light to alter the truth.
That’s part of the problem – “problem” in quotes – because I don’t think anyone wants truth to be absolute. We agree with Hillel that you don’t hurt people’s feelings and if someone gives you a present you don’t like, you still tell the person, “I like it very much.” However, since truth is not absolute, it does open the door for all sorts of individuals to say, “We can cover this up.”