When Divrei Torah Cannot Be Trusted

For excellent reasons, many Torah scholars are deeply reluctant to share their thoughts in public. For the most part, I don’t believe they can be faulted for their concerns, but the practice does risk serious consequences. For one thing, the communication vacuum often allows for unscrupulous individuals to actively misrepresent the positions of prominent rabbis. But there’s also the fact that it can be hard to confidently know whether even authorized positions are real.

Let me explain. Here’s something I originally wrote more than a decade ago. You can see the full context here. But if anything, the core issue feels even more relevant now than ever.

The Maharitz Chiyus (בספרו דרכי ההוראה חלק שני סימן ו) reprinted a letter written to him by the Chasam Sofer. Responding to a challenge to his previously published contention that there is both a מצות עשה ומצות לא תעשה involved in delaying a Jewish burial, the Chasam Sofer acknowledged that, besides the isolated opinion of the Ramban, his claim was in fact exaggerated and the prohibition was not מן התורה at all. However he had consciously misrepresented the truth in order to impress people who might otherwise ignore a דין דרבנן.

Now some have claimed that, by hanging his claim of דאורייתא on the shoulders of Ramban, the Chasam Sofer in fact misrepresented nothing since, in any case, it is forbidden to leave a body unburied at least rabbinically. This would, however, seem to be correct only according to the Raavad in his gloss to the Rambam (פ”ב מהל’ ממרים):

Rambam: And if (someone were to say that) the meat of a bird is forbidden (with milk) and say that it is included in the Torah prohibition of “the goat’s” (meat), he has added (to the Torah and has thus transgressed Deut. 4:2)

Raavad: All this is meaningless for there was surely no prohibition when the rabbis associated their decrees and fences with Torah passages even those meant for all generations as we find in many places “this is rabbinic and the verse is simply used as a memory device…”

Kesef Mishna: The Rambam only meant to prohibit (false designations of Torah law) when someone would claim that a rabbinic law is actually of Torah origin, but if (as in the case of those sources mentioned by Raavad) they say explicitly “this is rabbinic and the verse is simply used as a memory device…” (even Rambam would agree there’s no problem).

Which would seem to suggest that someone who claims that a rabbinic law is actually of Torah origin (as the Chasam Sofer seems to have done) is, at least according to the Rambam (and the Shach to יו”ד סי’ פז ססק”ד who quotes him) in some trouble. Since the Chasam Sofer surely knew this when he issued his decision, his fears for the integrity of Jewish burial must have been for him of overriding concern. And since the Chasam Sofer obviously felt justified to employ this subtle misrepresentation of Torah sources in that case, is it not possible that he – and others – did it elsewhere as well?

Now, assuming I’m correct, this brings me to my problem: what is תורת אמת? When a new understanding would seem not to reflect Chazal’s specific intentions, the absolute truth of a sugya certainly doesn’t change once acharonim represent it in a new way. I don’t for a moment doubt the powerful clarity of vision and deep concern that must have informed the Chasam Sofer’s choice, I only wonder how I am to relate to its product.

One more thought. I know that the Chasam Sofer was far from the only Torah scholar who made such tactical decisions. In fact, I’m sure there are large-scale attempts even today to filter the Torah’s message to serve some greater communal good. However, I believe that a careful reappraisal of this approach might be appropriate in light of the specific challenges presented by the first stages of the Internet revolution we’re now living through.

As politicians and other public figures have discovered, there are countless thousands of volunteer “crowd-sourcing” Internet users carefully tracking public statements and actions – and exposing contradictions and errors. This, I believe, has helped promote honest and effective government. But it has also meant that, effectively, intellectual privacy no longer exists.

The Orthodox world has not remained free of these changes. The Torah world and its leaders – whether aware or not – are also being observed, tracked and exposed as never before. Some of the trackers are meticulous and well-intentioned, some malicious and others, simply foolish. But there’s no point trying to stop it nor much point in just hoping it’ll conveniently disappear.

I was not familiar with this letter of the Chasam Sofer (despite the many hours of pleasure I’ve had learning the various writings of the Maharitz Chiyus, I had never come across this one). I only discovered it through the Internet. And I know I’m not the only one who saw it. I don’t believe it takes too much imagination to picture the kind of reaction that modern versions of this particular “meta-halachic” psak might evoke once they make their own way onto the “Information Highway”.