On the surface we recently witnessed two stories about publishing and public pressure—HarperCollins omission of Israel in their atlases sold in Gulf State countries, and the continuing storyline coming out of the Charlie Hebdo tragedy. What do these two events have in common, and what lessons can we gather about today’s world of publishing?
Let’s start with the HarperCollins story.
At first HarperCollins was pressured to wipe Israel from an atlas sold in the Gulf State countries, and then public pressure caused HarperCollins to remove these atlases from sale and revert them to back to pulp (hopefully to be recycled to publish more beneficial offerings the next time around).
This is not a conscious way to approach the news, however, and while it is good to see these controversy laden atlases being removed, the “public pressure” rendition of the story lacks depth.
But before we delve deeper, I thought to relate a story from my own experience.
During my journey through the world of Jewish publishing I once befriended the religion book buyer at Barnes & Noble. For those who may not know, the Barnes & Noble office in Manhattan hosts the staff that makes the book-buying decisions for all Barnes & Noble stores nationwide. There is some room for local preference, but generally speaking, the decision behind the book purchases in each genre comes down to the “buyer” for that category. It was for this purpose that I set up a meeting with Tim, carrying the books of several Jewish publishers in tow.
Fast forward some months later and I discovered an online petition to remove a missionary “Haggadah” from the Judaism section shelves of Barnes & Noble stores nationwide. Having somewhat of an insider connection to the story, I called Tim up and left a voice message exclaiming that there is an online petition, and that this subversive book claiming to be a Haggadah should be removed from the Judaism section immediately.
A few hours later Tim called back. He search his database and apparently the Haggadah hadn’t been stocked at Barnes & Noble stores for months. There was no story and no need for a petition.
Three Dimensions of the Book
The Book of Formation, a Kabbalistic work attributed to Abraham, begins with the statement that,
God created the world with three books: an author, a book, and a story.
All three nouns, a book (sefer, סֵפֶר), an author (sofer, סוֹפֵר), and a story (sippur,סִיפּוּר), stem from the same three-letter root (ספר). Using the simplest noun, “a book” (סֵפֶר), the Book of Formation is telling us (metaphorically, of course) that God created the world through three aspects or dimensions of the book.
Generally speaking the story (sippur) is how the author connects to the reader. For instance it is common knowledge today in marketing that if you want to engage the public, you have to be good at telling stories. For an author this means being able to convey their personal story outward for the public to read and benefit from.
In a Jewish context, the best stories are those told of tzadikim, of righteous souls. As Rebbe Dovid of Lelov, who once said, “Now we learn the tractate of Baba Kama, but in the World to Come there will be an additional tractate called Rebbe Dovid of Lelov.” Apart from what we can learn about proper conduct from the stories of tzadikim (righteous individuals), the life-story of every tzadik is actually Torah (just as most of the Torah is the story of people that actually lived).
What happens though when the author has wayward or nefarious intentions? Then the story worth telling is not what is contained in the book, but the opposite—to publicize that the author (sofer) is not a sofer (which also means a Jewish sage because they counted and recounted the letters and the different phenomena contained within the Written Torah).
The Subversive Atlas
As mentioned, the Barnes & Noble story was a non-story. Sure, the publisher of the Haggadah had nefarious intentions, but since the book was no longer sold in Barnes & Noble stores, there was nothing new to add… no need for a petition, other than to inform the public about yet another nefarious practice of missionaries.
With HarperCollins there was both a newsworthy story, and a story that made public their “personal story.” As mentioned, when the personal story of a sofer is made public, of a tzadik, then is actually Torah. But here the story publicized the fact that HarperCollins are not tzadikim, and that due to monetary considerations, they were willing to wipe Israel off the map, God forbid.
Attacking the Author
But this is still not the innermost story. Presumably before these headlines, most of us already assumed that HarperCollins and others operated like businesses whose primary consideration was revenue. Thus the fact that they caved in to pressure out of monetary considerations is something, but still not the main story.
Instead, what is important to realize is that the pressure that HarperCollins succumbed to is the same pressure being exerted now on the world of journalism. For HarperCollins it was monetary pressure, and last week in the Charlie Hebdo office it was physical.
The real answer, and the real lesson that we learn from HarperCollins, Charlie Hebdo, and many other similar recent stories is that those who have the most important stories to tell need to increase their efforts to be heard. Most essentially these are the sofrim, the sages of Israel. Rather than be silenced, increasingly their voices of truth needs to be heard.
Whereas we didn’t expect much from HarperCollins, we need to expect more from ourselves. Freedom of speech and expression is a start, but the quality of speech depends on the speaker, on the sages (sofrim) that through their publications (sefer) convey the stories (sippur) worth reading.
Originally published on InwardNews.com.