{"id":72243,"date":"2015-08-07T09:34:10","date_gmt":"2015-08-07T17:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=72243"},"modified":"2015-08-07T09:34:10","modified_gmt":"2015-08-07T17:34:10","slug":"jewish-press-interviews-marc-shapiro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=72243","title":{"rendered":"Jewish Press Interviews Marc Shapiro"},"content":{"rendered":"

LINK<\/a>: Your book is filled with examples of historical revisionism and omission. Let\u2019s go through a number of them. First: Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach\u2019s position on lashon hara between a husband and wife.<\/strong><\/p>\n

He thought if someone is having a bad day and has to get something off his chest, he can mention a certain individual to his wife. Under normal circumstances, that would be lashon hara, but he thought among spouses it is permissible because they\u2019re like one person.<\/p>\n

This p\u2019sak, though, was removed in a later edition of Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach\u2019s work because it\u2019s not in accordance with the Chofetz Chaim\u2019s position.<\/p>\n

The Vilna Gaon\u2019s comments on Greek philosophy.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Vilna Gaon states that the Rambam was led astray by \u201caccursed philosophy.\u201d But the people who published the Vilna Shulchan Aruch \u2013 the Romm publishers \u2013 were enlightened Jews and they were troubled by the phrase \u201caccursed.\u201d So they removed it. And until the recent Machon Yerushalayim printing, that\u2019s the way it appeared in standard editions of the Shulchan Aruch.<\/p>\n

Rav Yosef Karo\u2019s view of kapparos.
\n<\/strong>
\nHe calls it a \u201cminhag shtut.\u201d That was removed for obvious reasons \u2013 because it was thought to be offensive to those who practice the custom. It appears in the first edition of the Shulchan Aruch, but it\u2019s not in the Vilna edition or any of the other standard editions.<\/p>\n

The Chasam Sofer\u2019s position on the beginning and end of Shabbos.<\/strong><\/p>\n

There was a practice in Europe that Shabbos began after sunset, in accordance with Rabbeinu Tam\u2019s position. This is an old practice that has pretty much fallen out of favor, but for much of Jewish history Shabbos started after sunset.<\/p>\n

What I quote in the book is a protest [letter] that criticized Jews in Williamsburg who still were observing this custom. [The main point of that letter, though, concerned] the end of Shabbos. When Rav Moshe Stern published a volume of the teshuvot of the Chasam Sofer, it was censored because the Chasam Sofer doesn\u2019t rule like Rabbeinu Tam. The Satmar Rav didn\u2019t want that to be known.<\/p>\n

The Kitzur Shulchan Aruch\u2019s comments about non-observant Jews.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the original text, he says that you don\u2019t mourn for irreligious Jews, and you don\u2019t really have anything to do with them. They\u2019re wicked people, and we should rejoice when the wicked die. But if you look in later editions of this work, those comments are completely removed.<\/p>\n

The Rema\u2019s teshuvah on yayin nesech.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u2019re drinking the wine. However, he attempts to justify them ex post facto so that they would not be viewed as sinners.<\/p>\n

The censors, though, were worried that people would see the teshuvah and say, \u201cWe can drink non-Jewish wine,\u201d so they removed it. It was a valid concern because Israel Silverman from the JTS actually used Isserles\u2019s responsum to justify drinking non-Jewish wine today. He was attacked for that \u2013 and rightly so \u2013 because this was only an ex post facto justification.<\/p>\n

The speech of the Belzer Rebbe\u2019s brother in 1944 when the Rebbe and his family escaped Hungary.<\/strong><\/p>\n

He said the Rebbe wasn\u2019t leaving because there was anything to be afraid of, and that the people don\u2019t need to be worried. When the drasha was reprinted in 1967 that was cut out \u2013 for obvious reasons, because the Nazis did move in to Budapest and destroyed as much of the Jewish community as they could.<\/p>\n

Last question: Your critics argue that many of your books make one cynical and disillusioned with Judaism. What\u2019s your response?<\/strong><\/p>\n

If that\u2019s what they feel, they shouldn\u2019t read them.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019m not writing as a yeshivish-type person or spiritual leader putting forth a vision. I\u2019m writing historical books. If certain people find them troubling, that\u2019s fine; they shouldn\u2019t read them. I don\u2019t take any offense at that. Not every book is for every person.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LINK: Your book is filled with examples of historical revisionism and omission. Let\u2019s go through a number of them. First: Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach\u2019s position on lashon hara between a husband and wife. He thought if someone is having a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[69,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marc-b-shapiro","category-orthodoxy"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=72243"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72244,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72243\/revisions\/72244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=72243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=72243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=72243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}