While print book sales were up less than 1% last year, sales of the Bible rose 22% in the U.S. through the end of October, compared with the same period last year. Many ascribe this phenomenon to anxiety over uncertainty with the economy, security, and the world in general. It seems people are turning to the Bible for hope, strength and faith.
The Wall Street Journal reports: “Publishers say the books are selling well at religious bookstores, but also on Amazon.com and at more mainstream retailers. People buy print copies to make notes in and highlight but often supplement them with audiobooks as well.”
As people who place a tremendous value on the centrality of the Bible and on its study, we see this trend is most welcome. A woman once shared with me a story from her childhood. She attended public school and one day, when school let out it was raining hard. Her mother came to pick her up so she wouldn’t have to get soaked walking home. As she entered the car, her mother pointed to the public-school entrance and said, “I can tell you which kids are Jewish and which aren’t.” Surprised and curious, she asked her mother, how do you know? Her mother answered, “The children who put their books under their shirt or jacket to protect it and keep it dry are Jewish. Those who hold the book over their head to keep their head dry but sacrifice the book are not Jewish.”
Since our inception, the Jewish people have placed a premium on literacy and on study. As a result, we have been dubbed the People of the Book. For us, study is not relegated to scholars and the elite. There is a mitzvah on every man to engage the book, to learn Torah every morning and every evening. Women, too, are obligated to study the laws that pertain to them.
Indeed, the 613th and final mitzvah in the Torah is the obligation to write a Sefer Torah. Rabbeinu Asher, the Rosh, argues that today when we don’t study directly from a Torah scroll, this mitzvah is fulfilled when we buy seforim, when we collect and learn Torah books. Seforim, Torah books, should adorn every Jewish home and be its essential décor. There is a prominent teacher of Torah in the greater Jewish community whose father grew up with no Jewish background and had never learned or open a sefer in his life. When this teacher was a young boy and his father was becoming observant, someone in his community instructed the father to buy a set of Shas to keep in his home. The father resisted, explaining there would be no point since he did not understand the words and would be unable to study it. The person said, “That’s not why I’m telling you to get a Shas. Get a Shas and display it in your house so your children see and understand that their parents value Torah and its study.” The father bought the Shas, his children are now grown up and teach Torah all over the world, and the father himself grew into regular Torah study as well.
We don’t just learn seforim or collect them, we celebrate them. Indeed, Chabad this week celebrated a holiday, the 5th of Shevat designated to the celebration of seforim.
In 1985, the librarians of the Agudas Chassidei Chabad Library began to notice that rare books and manuscripts were missing from the library. Simultaneously, collectors and sellers of rare books began reporting suspicious items entering the market. After an investigation, it came to light that a nephew of the Rebbe was stealing books from the Chabad library and putting them up for sale. When confronted with his actions, he argued that as a grandson of the Frierdiker Rebbe, the previous Lubavitcher Rebbe, the seforim were his rightful inheritance. After several failed attempts to resolve the issue through Beis Din, Chabad filed a restraining order against the sale of any more books from its library. They also filed a lawsuit, and the case was brought before federal judge Charles Sifton.
The nephew’s lawyers argued that the books were privately owned and were bequeathed to members of the family, essentially his rightful inheritance. Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka, the Rebbe’s wife was deposed by the nephew’s legal team. In her testimony, she famously declared, “I think they [the seforim] belonged to the Chassidim because my father belonged to the Chassidim.” Her words and sincerity were compelling and ultimately pursuasive to the judge.
The trial lasted for twenty-three days. During that time, the Rebbe spoke about it at farbrengens, urging his chassidim to demonstrate how active, vibrant and alive Chabad is by increasing their efforts to spread chassidus.
On the 5th of Teves, 5747, corresponding with January 6, 1987, almost a full year after the trial ended, the judge issued his ruling that the books belong to Chabad. As the news spread among chassidim, they employed a rabbinic phrase from the Talmud: “victory is ours.” The intense celebration that followed lasted for days. The chassidim understood that this was about more than just the seforim. The ruling made a statement to the world that Lubavitch was alive and vibrant and that indeed, the seforim and the movement belong to the chassidim, to the people. From that day, the 5th of Teves was designated as a holiday, “Didan Notzach,” marked by the purchase of seforim, the printing of sefarim, and the rededication to learning seforim.
I had the privilege of visiting the Rebbe’s Ohel this week on the 5th of Teves. An enormous crowd was gathered, people were dressed for Shabbos and wishing one another a Gut Yom Tov. Though not a Torah or rabbinic holiday, not a day that appears on any other Jewish calendar other than Chabad’s, I was moved by the simcha, the sheer and authentic joy, enthusiasm and love those who weren’t even alive when the trial happened still felt towards not only the judicial victory, but to the significance and centrality of seforim.
If sale and study of the Bible is surging in the U.S. in general, all the more so should it be surging among our people, the people of the book. We are living in an age in which there is a proliferation of Jewish and Torah literature in countless languages, in hard copy, online, audio and reading devices and on a diverse range of topics, themes, and ideas. There is so much noise and nonsense in the world today. Engaging Torah is our blueprint, our manual for navigating this complicated world.
Don’t just buy seforim, learn them and celebrate them, not only on the 5th of Teves, but each and every day.
When is the author of this piece formally converting to Lubavitch?