Cleared by the Censor

Some stories are true, but that does not mean they need to be told right away.

Cleared for Publication

Over the past two and a half years, Israelis have gotten very used to one phrase: “cleared by the censor.” It usually comes up when information is finally allowed to be published after being held back for security reasons—details about military operations, intelligence matters, and other sensitive events.

In a broader way, something like this exists in many countries. Governments often keep certain documents sealed for decades, sometimes nearly a hundred years, before releasing them to the public. As long as the people involved are still around, there is often a reluctance to reveal material that could embarrass them. But once a generation or two has passed, that concern fades, and the record can come out.

The Torah has something a little like that too.

The haftarah for Parshat Kedoshim comes from Ezekiel chapter 20. The reading itself begins at verse 2, but verse 1 gives us the setting—and helps us understand what comes next.

Ezekiel was living in exile. He had been taken from Jerusalem to Babylonia more than a decade before the destruction of the First Temple, along with part of the city’s leadership and upper class.

Then, in the seventh year of that exile, while he was by the river Chebar in Babylonia, a group described as “the elders of Israel” came to seek the word of G-d and sat before him (Ezekiel 20:1). According to Seder Olam, an early rabbinic work on chronology, these elders were Chananiah, Mishael, and Azariah—the same three figures from the story of the fiery furnace, who refused to bow to an idol and were saved. That tradition says they came to Ezekiel hoping he would pray that the First Temple might still be spared.

The haftarah opens with G-d’s answer, delivered through Ezekiel. And it is a sharp one. The people are not living the way they should. But, G-d says, this is not a new problem. Their failures go back a long way. This story did not begin now. It has a history.

The New Revelation

Ezekiel goes back in Jewish history, to when G-d chose the Jewish people back in Egypt, revealed Himself to them there, and promised to take them out of Egypt and to bring them to a land “flowing with milk and honey.” 

But then Ezekiel adds something we have not heard before.

According to him, while the Jews were still in Egypt, G-d warned them not to make themselves impure with Egypt’s idols. And they did not listen. They rebelled. They refused to give up the gods of Egypt. Rashi, commenting on this passage, adds an especially striking detail: this message was delivered by Aaron, even before G-d first appeared to Moshe at the burning bush.

In other words, according to this tradition, the Jewish people were already told in Egypt to break with idol worship—and they refused.

Ezekiel goes even further. He says that G-d considered destroying them there in Egypt. So why didn’t that happen? Ezekiel explains that G-d held back because the Egyptians would have seen it as a failure—as though He was unable to bring His people out.

That is a pretty astonishing piece of information. Nowhere in Chumash, in Devarim, in Yehoshua, or in the later books of Tanach are we told this story so clearly. Until Ezekiel, it is almost as if this whole chapter of Jewish history had been kept hidden away. Only now, close to nine hundred years after Yetzias Mitzrayim, does the prophet reveal it.

So why was it kept hidden for so long?

Rashi gives a remarkable answer. For close to nine hundred years, he says, G-d’s love for the Jewish people covered over the story. Rashi cites the verse in Mishlei: “Love covers all offenses.”

This painful episode remained unspoken for centuries not because it was untrue, but because love does not rush to uncover what is embarrassing. And there is a powerful lesson in that. When you truly love someone, you don’t look for chances to publicize their failures to the world, even when those failures are real.

Why Hide It?

But that raises the obvious question: if G-d kept this story hidden for almost nine hundred years, why reveal it now? What changed?

We find a similar idea in another place in the Torah.

In the Book of Bamidbar, right after the story of the spies, the Torah tells us about a man who was found gathering wood on Shabbat in the desert. It was a public violation of Shabbat, very early in the Jewish people’s journey. But the Torah does not tell us who the man was. It simply says, “they found a man.” No name. No background. The story stays anonymous.

Later, the Gemara discusses who this man may have been. In Shabbat 96b, Rabbi Akiva says that the man was Tzelafchad, and he brings proof from the verses. Rabbi Yehudah ben Beteira strongly objects. He says to Rabbi Akiva, in effect: “The Torah covered it up, and you are uncovering it?”

In other words, if the Torah went out of its way not to name him, why are you trying to identify him?

And yet, the Gemara does record Rabbi Akiva’s opinion. Which brings us right back to the same question. For well over a thousand years, Jews could learn that story without knowing who the man was. So what changed? Why was it suddenly, so to speak, cleared for publication?

We see the same pattern again at the beginning of Devarim.

The entire book of Devarim is basically Moshe’s farewell speech, given during the final weeks of his life. He looks back at the major events of the forty years in the desert: Har Sinai, the Golden Calf, the spies, and much more.

But the speech begins in a strange way. Instead of saying things openly, the Torah lists a series of places: “in the wilderness, in the Arabah, opposite Suph, between Paran and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Di-zahab.”

Why list all these locations?

Rashi explains that these are not just places on a map. They are hints. Each place alludes to a moment when the Jewish people angered G-d. Moshe wanted to rebuke them, but he did not want to embarrass them openly, so he spoke in hints.

It is like a parent saying to a child, “You remember what happened last time we went there. Let’s not do that again.” Nothing has to be spelled out. Everyone knows exactly what is being said.

But then Rashi himself goes and explains what happened at each of those places.

And that brings us back to the same problem. If the Torah deliberately spoke indirectly, out of respect for the dignity of the Jewish people, why does Rashi make it explicit? If the Torah chose to be discreet, why does Rashi reveal the details?

The Rebbe addresses this question in a 1987 farbrengen, and his answer is that it all depends on timing.

In Moshe’s own generation, these stories were still fresh. The people involved were still alive, or at least still part of the nation’s living memory. So Moshe spoke carefully. He gave rebuke, but he did it through hints, without spelling out every painful detail.

But by the time of Rashi, about twenty-four hundred years later, that concern was no longer there. Nobody was being personally embarrassed anymore. At that point, explaining the hints did not serve to shame anyone; it served to help us understand the Torah.

The same idea applies to the man who gathered wood on Shabbat. In his own time, there was every reason to keep his identity private. According to the tradition, he was Tzelafchad—the father of Tzelafchad’s daughters, who are remembered so positively in the Torah for their love of Eretz Yisrael. There was no reason to publicly disgrace that family.

But by the time of Rabbi Akiva, around thirteen hundred years later, the situation was different. No one was being personally humiliated by identifying him anymore. And once that was no longer the issue, there was value in giving him a name. An anonymous story is harder to relate to. But when you know who the person was, the story becomes more real. It can become a stronger warning, or even, in some way, a deeper lesson.

And that may be the answer here too, in Ezekiel’s story.

Sometimes a story is kept hidden not because it does not matter, but because it is too sensitive to tell at the time. Later, when enough time has passed, the same story can finally be told—not to embarrass anyone, but to help us understand the story more deeply.

The Stories We Ought to Tell

When we hear that someone, somewhere, did something good, it usually does not move us all that much. It feels too general. We do not know who the person was, what they were dealing with, or what it actually took for them to do the right thing.

But when we hear that a specific person did something good—someone we know, someone our age, someone living in a situation we can relate to—it hits very differently. Suddenly it feels real. Suddenly it feels possible.

Maybe that also helps explain why G-d kept the story of the Jewish people’s idol worship in Egypt hidden for nine hundred years.

But once the Jewish people were sent into exile in Babylonia, the situation changed. This was their first exile since entering Eretz Yisrael. They were beginning a new and frightening chapter, and perhaps this is why G-d chose that moment to reveal the story through the prophet Ezekiel.

The point was not to reopen an old shame just for the sake of exposing it. The point was to warn a new generation: Do not repeat the old mistake. In Egypt, the Jewish people were given a message from G-d, and they did not listen. Now, in Babylonia, when the prophets bring you G-d’s message, listen this time.

That may be why it was Ezekiel, at that specific moment, who was chosen to reveal this hidden chapter.

And the lesson is very important.

Speaking negatively about the Jewish people—even when the facts are true—is something that has to be handled with the greatest care. It is not something to rush into, and it is certainly not something to enjoy.

But speaking positively about the Jewish people is different. That should be done freely and generously. Good deeds should be publicized. As the Rebbe often emphasized, it is a mitzvah to publicize those who do mitzvos.

That kind of speech does not embarrass people. It lifts them up. And just as importantly, it lifts up everyone who hears it.