This is an excellent piece with a lot to unpack. The "Slifkin affair" stands out as one of the most significant events during the peak of Jewish blogging.
In my opinion, it's tied into the broader trend of the New Atheist movement, and 9/11.
Interestingly, and revealingly, R' Kamenetzky's Making of a Godol was also banned around the same time. Check out Marc Shapiro's article on that, as well as my selected bibliography on the topic of 21st-century heresy, doubt, and criticism by disaffiliates of ultra-Orthodox Judaism in the US:
My personal beliefs are irrelevant here, no need for ad hominems. I was simply making the point that the early 2000s was a time of greater criticism of fundamentalist religion. Very simple, no need to overthink it
The old joke is that a yeshiva bochur in Eastern Europe hears about a famous apikores and decides he wants to learn from him. So he travels all the way to a faraway city, tracks him down, and tells him he wants to be an apikores.
"You do? Have you learned the whole Tanach?"
"Well, um, no, not all of it."
"The Yerushalmi?"
"No, I've never really learned it."
"Have you finished the Bavli?"
"Well, no, I've just learned a few masechtot."
"OK, here's what you do: Go back to yeshiva. Learn all of Tanach, finish Bavli, learn the Yerushalmi, Midrashim, Tosefta, Rishonim, Achronim...when you're done, come back and we'll talk about you becoming an apikores."
Haha, classic. But of course, the reverse never happens. No kiruv yeshiva ever says to a secular person interested in learning more about becoming frum, as Yisro famously wanted for his grandson: "Have you read all the materialist philosophers? Come back to us when you have". So it's just the classic heads we win, tails you lose
The version of the "old joke" I heard was: Ben Gurion lamented to Golda Meir, "Golda, we thought we were founding a country of apiqursim. But we only built one of amharatzim." (Translated from the Yiddish. Had the "quote" been in Hebrew, it would have been "amei haaretz". BG knew Hebrew better than that.)
Off-topic, but guessing which Nachum this is -- if I'm right it would be of interest:
Avraham Even-Shoshan (author of the dictionary and concordance) and his chavrusah in cheder wrote a peirush of several books of Tanakh together as kids. (ES's father taught Ivrit there.) At age 12, they tackled Mishlei and Daniel -- a book of metaphors and one largely in Aramaic! But in those days they were known as Avraham Rosenstein and...
Mazal tov on this milestone anniversary! I remain gobsmacked at your brilliance, have loved following you on this journey, and admit to having been also influenced in the direction we have taken by the ongoing blogging of your experiences. With much kavod, wishing you continued hatzlacha and can't wait to read the next book!
Are you familiar with Rabbi Dr. Raphael Zarum ? His book “Questioning Belief” which was published by Maggid Press makes the case for not taking the Torah literally when it comes to Bereishit, the flood, the exodus etc etc. This book won the Rabbi Sacks Book Prize. No one had banned this book as far as I know. Rabbi Slifkin lead the way for this! Mazel Tov on your anniversary!
Maggid Press is a Modern Orthodox publisher, so it wouldn't be subject to a ban. Charedim only ban publications from within their own community, meaning the publisher is charedi or the author is a well known charedi figure
Actually, the fight against Sacks was led by the British MO rabbinate. Most Charedi Rabbis scoffed at the idea that anything the CR wrote was worth the paper it was written on. As one Chassidic Rabbi said, 'CHief Rabbi? SHteef Rabbi!'
I've had rebbeim, including at YU, men far, far frummer and righteous than I, who quietly told us much the same. Some of them believed in the literal truth of all or most of that, they just didn't think it heresy to think otherwise.
Well, I'm not sure if "happy anniversary" is appropriate, but...twenty years, wow.
I think you're spot-on about how these things are connected. And a yasher koach to the gedolim and machers for setting so many people on the right track. :-)
Allow me to share a memory: In 2003 the Orthodox blog world (remember that?) was getting started, and charedi book bans were getting more common. And with YU's annual sefarim sale starting, someone wrote a post, "Which book at YU's sale this year is the most likely to be banned? My money is on Nosson Slifkin's 'Mysterious Creatures'." And I thought, "Oh, come on, *that* book?" My charedi rabbi owned a copy, after all.
Well, it took another year and half, but he was right.
I am glad that you stated explicitly the words "deification of Daas Torah". The Haredim all are כופרים בעיקר. They all worship multiple gods: the Real One plus at least one "Rabbi".
Ironically, the hated Medina is actually the biggest supporter of Torah learning in Jewish history. More people are sitting and learning, with extensive support from the state, than ever before. Where is the hakarat hatov?
I regret that we chose to remove some of your more controversial emails from the Avodah archive. It seems a couple of guys were mining the archive for things to show "the gedolim" for round 2 of the ban. It ended up not making a difference, and now they're out of Google's reach.
As I've said many times, any Rabbi whose books are banned is a Rabbi I want to get to know better and understand. Rav Slifkin, you're in excellent company. Didn't people burn Rambam's books back in the day? He seems to have come out of that pretty well.
I think that your statement about Charedi culture "believing that they believe that learning Torah is a replacement for military effort" is far too kind. It should read "pretending that they believe..."
I also think that you are far too kind in ascribing to Charedi culture any core beliefs whatsoever, beyond perhaps political aims.
Baruch Hashem, you survived and flourished, and I am proud to have been one of the people who defended you in print.
Just re Rav Elya, while Rabbi Ribner makes the statement about Rav Elya and you, are we certain that Rav Elya actually holds that? It seems to be hearsay.
Leib, I my recall may not be perfect here. But YU individuals were definitely involved, including Rav Moshe Tendler, who wrote a book defending the wearing of techelet. Baruch Sterman, a key player, is Hebrew U educated and not chareidi.
Nothing against chareidi participation in the techelet revolution. Anyway, this is small stuff, let's not get caught up in it.
Your non typo, "believing that they believe," I think is missing a qualifier. It should be "wanting to believe that they believe."
In practice I'm not sure everyone puts this belief into practice, if they did, bein hazmanim would be fully canceled, and there would be full sedarim even during chol hamoed... just like vacation and time off has been cancelled for IDF soldiers.
Surprisingly, the haskamot industry survived this incident. I assume that the haskamot on Slifkin's books were argued away by suggesting that they didn't actually read the book. And then ironically the bans get loaded with haskamot.
So do names on books and paskevilim retain any value today???
Both of the Rashei Yeshiva who gave me haskamos definitely read at least parts of the book. I got back suggested edits! I am sure R Aharon Lopiansky (Y' of Greater Washington) read cover to cover, his feedback was copious. R Kalman Espstein (Yeshivas Shaar haTorah - Grodno, and great-grandson of R Shimon Shkop, whom the book is based on) only gave me two suggestions, so it is possible he skimmed the rest.
When the Science of Torah (or one of Natan's other science-related writings, can't remember) came out, I read around 80 percent of it and then told my rosh yeshiva, HaRav Yechiel Perr, zt'l, "I can't find any kefirah in it." He responded emphatically, "And you won't!"
That's part of the story, but the main mistake was mine, in seeking haskamos in the first place from people who are not experts in the topic and who are not of a rationalist orientation. Contrast R. Lopiansky with R. Aryeh Carmell, who stood by his haskamah.
Interestingly, Rav Moshe Feinstein was careful to give an approbation for the author (haskamat gavra) while noting that he had not had the time to review the content (haskamat cheftza)
For better or worse, the younger generation is already using AI for writing and will keep doing so. Avoiding it is like doing math without a calculator or working in accounting without Excel; it’s possible, but it puts most people at a disadvantage. Even just as a tool for editing style, AI is highly effective
Google recently released NotebookLM which allows users to create a podcast discussion about a text. I uploaded my forthcoming book, Articles of Faith: Traditional Jewish Belief in the Internet Era, and created the podcast below. The entire podcast -- script, voices, interaction -- is artificial. And yet it is a very interesting discussion. Some of it is spot on and some of it is completely wrong. There is quite a bit of typically superficial thought that you often hear on podcasts, including word salads of trendy terms and concepts. Overall, though, it is quite impressive and, if you have a sense for contemporary jargon, it’s quite humorous. At minute 7, it even gets ironic when these two AI voices discuss whether an AI can be a halakhic authority. Again, to be clear, I uploaded a PDF of the book into the AI and out came this dialogue between two fake voices. It makes a lot of factual mistakes about the book and about Judaism but still sounds extremely realistic. Please judge the book based on its actual content and not what some AI claims it says.
The book is available at Kodesh Press for a 25% pre-publication discount (using code Articles25 - publication in November).
This is an excellent piece with a lot to unpack. The "Slifkin affair" stands out as one of the most significant events during the peak of Jewish blogging.
In my opinion, it's tied into the broader trend of the New Atheist movement, and 9/11.
Interestingly, and revealingly, R' Kamenetzky's Making of a Godol was also banned around the same time. Check out Marc Shapiro's article on that, as well as my selected bibliography on the topic of 21st-century heresy, doubt, and criticism by disaffiliates of ultra-Orthodox Judaism in the US:
https://www.academia.edu/99905079/21st_century_heresy_doubt_and_criticism_by_disaffiliates_of_ultra_Orthodox_Judaism_in_the_US_a_selected_bibliography
That's not at all what he meant, and you know it.
Or maybe you don't, which would be telling.
My personal beliefs are irrelevant here, no need for ad hominems. I was simply making the point that the early 2000s was a time of greater criticism of fundamentalist religion. Very simple, no need to overthink it
What's an "apikores"? Be specific.
The term "New Atheist" post-dates the controversy.
The old joke is that a yeshiva bochur in Eastern Europe hears about a famous apikores and decides he wants to learn from him. So he travels all the way to a faraway city, tracks him down, and tells him he wants to be an apikores.
"You do? Have you learned the whole Tanach?"
"Well, um, no, not all of it."
"The Yerushalmi?"
"No, I've never really learned it."
"Have you finished the Bavli?"
"Well, no, I've just learned a few masechtot."
"OK, here's what you do: Go back to yeshiva. Learn all of Tanach, finish Bavli, learn the Yerushalmi, Midrashim, Tosefta, Rishonim, Achronim...when you're done, come back and we'll talk about you becoming an apikores."
Haha, classic. But of course, the reverse never happens. No kiruv yeshiva ever says to a secular person interested in learning more about becoming frum, as Yisro famously wanted for his grandson: "Have you read all the materialist philosophers? Come back to us when you have". So it's just the classic heads we win, tails you lose
Well, look what happened to the grandson. :-) (Great-grandson, actually.)
The version of the "old joke" I heard was: Ben Gurion lamented to Golda Meir, "Golda, we thought we were founding a country of apiqursim. But we only built one of amharatzim." (Translated from the Yiddish. Had the "quote" been in Hebrew, it would have been "amei haaretz". BG knew Hebrew better than that.)
Ben Gurion wrote a perush on Tanach. You can still find it in used bookstores. (Moshe Dayan wrote one too.)
Off-topic, but guessing which Nachum this is -- if I'm right it would be of interest:
Avraham Even-Shoshan (author of the dictionary and concordance) and his chavrusah in cheder wrote a peirush of several books of Tanakh together as kids. (ES's father taught Ivrit there.) At age 12, they tackled Mishlei and Daniel -- a book of metaphors and one largely in Aramaic! But in those days they were known as Avraham Rosenstein and...
... Dovid Lifshitz!
Mazal tov on this milestone anniversary! I remain gobsmacked at your brilliance, have loved following you on this journey, and admit to having been also influenced in the direction we have taken by the ongoing blogging of your experiences. With much kavod, wishing you continued hatzlacha and can't wait to read the next book!
Are you familiar with Rabbi Dr. Raphael Zarum ? His book “Questioning Belief” which was published by Maggid Press makes the case for not taking the Torah literally when it comes to Bereishit, the flood, the exodus etc etc. This book won the Rabbi Sacks Book Prize. No one had banned this book as far as I know. Rabbi Slifkin lead the way for this! Mazel Tov on your anniversary!
>Are you familiar with Rabbi Dr. Raphael Zarum?
A little... he's my first cousin.
Maggid Press is a Modern Orthodox publisher, so it wouldn't be subject to a ban. Charedim only ban publications from within their own community, meaning the publisher is charedi or the author is a well known charedi figure
Not quite. R' Sacks had a book banned, and it was published by a totally secular publisher. But generally, you're correct.
Part of that may have been his official position and the British charedi rabbinate chaffing under it.
Actually, the fight against Sacks was led by the British MO rabbinate. Most Charedi Rabbis scoffed at the idea that anything the CR wrote was worth the paper it was written on. As one Chassidic Rabbi said, 'CHief Rabbi? SHteef Rabbi!'
I've had rebbeim, including at YU, men far, far frummer and righteous than I, who quietly told us much the same. Some of them believed in the literal truth of all or most of that, they just didn't think it heresy to think otherwise.
Can't people see why there is a difference between not taking Genesis literally and not taking Exodus literally ?
Well, I'm not sure if "happy anniversary" is appropriate, but...twenty years, wow.
I think you're spot-on about how these things are connected. And a yasher koach to the gedolim and machers for setting so many people on the right track. :-)
Allow me to share a memory: In 2003 the Orthodox blog world (remember that?) was getting started, and charedi book bans were getting more common. And with YU's annual sefarim sale starting, someone wrote a post, "Which book at YU's sale this year is the most likely to be banned? My money is on Nosson Slifkin's 'Mysterious Creatures'." And I thought, "Oh, come on, *that* book?" My charedi rabbi owned a copy, after all.
Well, it took another year and half, but he was right.
I am glad that you stated explicitly the words "deification of Daas Torah". The Haredim all are כופרים בעיקר. They all worship multiple gods: the Real One plus at least one "Rabbi".
You do not know all the chareidis
Charedim also take your pet cats and dogs and barbecue them.
Ironically, the hated Medina is actually the biggest supporter of Torah learning in Jewish history. More people are sitting and learning, with extensive support from the state, than ever before. Where is the hakarat hatov?
This post should be referenced as the thesis statement for virtually every post you've ever written.
I regret that we chose to remove some of your more controversial emails from the Avodah archive. It seems a couple of guys were mining the archive for things to show "the gedolim" for round 2 of the ban. It ended up not making a difference, and now they're out of Google's reach.
The mabbul one is still there AFAIK
Maybe one of them. We went through the archives together and could easily have missed one.
As I've said many times, any Rabbi whose books are banned is a Rabbi I want to get to know better and understand. Rav Slifkin, you're in excellent company. Didn't people burn Rambam's books back in the day? He seems to have come out of that pretty well.
I think that your statement about Charedi culture "believing that they believe that learning Torah is a replacement for military effort" is far too kind. It should read "pretending that they believe..."
I also think that you are far too kind in ascribing to Charedi culture any core beliefs whatsoever, beyond perhaps political aims.
I think that some pretend that they believe it, and some believe that they believe it.
Baruch Hashem, you survived and flourished, and I am proud to have been one of the people who defended you in print.
Just re Rav Elya, while Rabbi Ribner makes the statement about Rav Elya and you, are we certain that Rav Elya actually holds that? It seems to be hearsay.
It makes perfect sense. After all, he was the driving force behind the ban.
interesting, i did not know that.
BTW, he is one of the few in his circle who wears techeilet. So I guess not everything about YU is unkosher.
Leib, I my recall may not be perfect here. But YU individuals were definitely involved, including Rav Moshe Tendler, who wrote a book defending the wearing of techelet. Baruch Sterman, a key player, is Hebrew U educated and not chareidi.
Nothing against chareidi participation in the techelet revolution. Anyway, this is small stuff, let's not get caught up in it.
Your non typo, "believing that they believe," I think is missing a qualifier. It should be "wanting to believe that they believe."
In practice I'm not sure everyone puts this belief into practice, if they did, bein hazmanim would be fully canceled, and there would be full sedarim even during chol hamoed... just like vacation and time off has been cancelled for IDF soldiers.
Great point!
That's a point you made yourself countless times rabbi.
I think that's what's implied by "believe they believe."
Indeed. "Belief in belief" is a known phrase, that's become popular recently
Or it can be mean that the belief is not well thought out.
Like how to incorporate into that belief system all those individuals in תנ"ך who were both Torah scholars and warriors.
Surprisingly, the haskamot industry survived this incident. I assume that the haskamot on Slifkin's books were argued away by suggesting that they didn't actually read the book. And then ironically the bans get loaded with haskamot.
So do names on books and paskevilim retain any value today???
Both of the Rashei Yeshiva who gave me haskamos definitely read at least parts of the book. I got back suggested edits! I am sure R Aharon Lopiansky (Y' of Greater Washington) read cover to cover, his feedback was copious. R Kalman Espstein (Yeshivas Shaar haTorah - Grodno, and great-grandson of R Shimon Shkop, whom the book is based on) only gave me two suggestions, so it is possible he skimmed the rest.
When the Science of Torah (or one of Natan's other science-related writings, can't remember) came out, I read around 80 percent of it and then told my rosh yeshiva, HaRav Yechiel Perr, zt'l, "I can't find any kefirah in it." He responded emphatically, "And you won't!"
Good thing you didn't show him "challenge of creation"
Looks like a mega failure of da'as torah then. Obviously he was just put under pressure to retract. Chareidi leadership (not) in a nutshell.
That's part of the story, but the main mistake was mine, in seeking haskamos in the first place from people who are not experts in the topic and who are not of a rationalist orientation. Contrast R. Lopiansky with R. Aryeh Carmell, who stood by his haskamah.
So why write the haskamah in the first place??
Interestingly, Rav Moshe Feinstein was careful to give an approbation for the author (haskamat gavra) while noting that he had not had the time to review the content (haskamat cheftza)
Do you ever plan to rerelease those banned books? This post made me want to revisit them but they are still expensive to buy online.
The revised versions, available on the museum website, are superior in every way.
I remember when I gave you an original Science of Torah to sign, you wrote, "Where did you find this fossil?" :-)
Great, Toda raba for letting me know!
U and dansdeals 😀
Hey, Dan's my cousin!
Write the book! Use AI to facilitate. It will save you time and will enable you to write it without much effort.
The thought of using AI to write a book horrifies me!
Embrace it. It's not like it'll write the book for you but it's a great tool to make it happen more easily
100 percent agree. Well said
For better or worse, the younger generation is already using AI for writing and will keep doing so. Avoiding it is like doing math without a calculator or working in accounting without Excel; it’s possible, but it puts most people at a disadvantage. Even just as a tool for editing style, AI is highly effective
An AI Podcast About Articles of Faith
By Gil Student on Oct 9, 24
Google recently released NotebookLM which allows users to create a podcast discussion about a text. I uploaded my forthcoming book, Articles of Faith: Traditional Jewish Belief in the Internet Era, and created the podcast below. The entire podcast -- script, voices, interaction -- is artificial. And yet it is a very interesting discussion. Some of it is spot on and some of it is completely wrong. There is quite a bit of typically superficial thought that you often hear on podcasts, including word salads of trendy terms and concepts. Overall, though, it is quite impressive and, if you have a sense for contemporary jargon, it’s quite humorous. At minute 7, it even gets ironic when these two AI voices discuss whether an AI can be a halakhic authority. Again, to be clear, I uploaded a PDF of the book into the AI and out came this dialogue between two fake voices. It makes a lot of factual mistakes about the book and about Judaism but still sounds extremely realistic. Please judge the book based on its actual content and not what some AI claims it says.
The book is available at Kodesh Press for a 25% pre-publication discount (using code Articles25 - publication in November).