Originally published in The Jewish Chronicle. Exodus: Commentary. By Ronald S. Clements. Cambridge University Press, 1973. £2.20. The Song of Songs: The Canonical Song of Solomon Deciphered According to the Original Code of the Qabala. By Carlo Suares. Routledge, Berkeley and London, 1972. £2.80. With the New English Bible translation as its basic text, the Cambridge…...
Isadore Twersky, A Maimonides Reader
Originally published in The Jewish Chronicle. A Maimonides Reader. By Isadore Twersky, Behrman House, N.Y. $12.50. People who try to read Maimonides’ “Guide for the Perplexed” in order to discover answers to their own religious difficulties inevitably emerge more perplexed than ever. This is bound to be the case since the problems with which the great…...
El-Am Talmud, Bava Metzi’a (III Hammaphqid), ed. Rabbi Dr A. Ehrman
Originally published in The Jewish Chronicle, 14 July 1972. The Talmud, Bava Mezi’a (III Hammaphqid), El-Am-Hotza’a Leor Israel, Jerusalem—Tel Aviv, 1969. The El-Am translations and commentaries have justifiably become famous as the best popular introductions to the study of the Talmud. This volume on the third chapter of tractate Bava Mezi’a admirably lives up to the…...
Robert Gordis, ‘The Biblical Text in the Making’; Jacob Needleman, ‘The New Religions’
Originally published in The Jewish Chronicle. The Biblical Text in the Making: A Study of the Kethib-Qere. Augmented Edition with a Prolegomenon by Robert Gordis. Ktav, 1971. The New Religions. By Jacob Needleman. Allen Lane. The Penguin Press. London, 1972. £2.75. Professor Gordis’s book first appeared in 1937. It is now republished together with a Prolegomenon…...
Whitall N. Perry, ‘A Treasury of Traditional Wisdom’
Originally published in The Jewish Chronicle, 14 April 1972. A Treasury of Traditional Wisdom. By Whitall N. Perry. George Allen & Unwin. London, 1971. £7.50. The “wisdom” referred to is that of the Philosophia Perennis and the book contains copious selections from the religious classics of mankind arranged according to topics. The basic assumption is the…...
What’s in it for me? – Shabbat Hagadol
Originally published in The Jewish Gazette, 24 March 1972. “You have said: ‘It is useless to serve God: what do we gain from the Lord of Hosts by observing His rules and behaving with deference?’” (Malachai 4: 14) In the Haftarah for Shabbat Ha-Gadol, from the Book of Malachai, the prophet, complains that the people see…...
Harry Guntrip, ‘Psychology for Ministers and Social Workers’
Originally published in The Jewish Chronicle. Psychology for Ministers and Social Workers. Third edition, fully revised and brought up to date. By Harry Guntrip. Allen & Unwin. £3.25. The author of this interesting book is a psychotherapist and lecturer in the department of psychiatry at Leeds University and was formerly a Congregational minister. The aim of…...
Solomon B. Freehof, ‘Modern Reform Responsa’
Originally published in The Jewish Chronicle, 4 February 1972. Modern Reform Responsa. By Solomon B. Freehof, Hebrew Union College Press, 1971. $7.50. Rabbi Freehof has not only pioneered the study of the Responsa (in his The Responsa Literature and A Treasury of Responsa) but is himself the leading Respondent for the Reform movement, arguing consistently that…...
Chaim Raphael, ‘A Feast of History: The drama of Passover through the ages’
Originally published in The Jewish Chronicle, 3 March 1972. A Feast of History: The drama of Passover through the ages with a new translation of the Haggadah for use at the Seder. By Chaim Raphael. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1972. £4. It is difficult to avoid superlatives in recommending this extremely attractive book, not unreasonably priced…...
Freedom in Hebrew accent
Originally published in The Jewish Chronicle, 24 March 1972. After the defeat of Nazism and the world’s realisation of the horrors of this obscene philosophy, decent men and women everywhere had come to believe that antisemitism would never again rear its head either as an instrument of national politics or as the criminal intent of perverse…...
Bo – The Jewish Heart
Originally published in the Jewish Gazette, 21 January 1972. The sidra begins with the reference to the hardening of Pharoah’s heart. The theological difficulties in God hardening a man’s heart have often been discussed but need not concern us here. The permanent significance of this part of the Exodus narrative lies in the idea that ideally…...
Pesach
Originally published in the Jewish Chronicle. On Pesach, it is not only children who are encouraged to ask questions. Where children are not present at the Seder, the adults ask the questions of one another. Even when a man celebrates the Seder on his own, the rule is that he must ask the questions to himself,…...
Tetsaveh
Originally published in the Jewish Chronicle, 6 March 1998. In the rites for the consecration of the priests, the blood of the sacrifices is sprinkled on the right ear, the thumb of the right hand, and the big toe of the right foot. The symbolism is obvious. Right denotes, in the Bible and in the subsequent…...
Va’era
Originally published in the Jewish Chronicle. Among the numerous comments on the 10 plagues, none is more startling and provocative than that of the Chasidic master, Rabbi Menachem Mendel, of Kotzk. He is reported to have said that you have to hand it to Pharaoh. Lesser mortals would have given in at the mere threat of…...
Vayishlach – Angels or Messengers
Originally published in the Jewish Chronicle, 12 December 1997. “And Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau his brother.”—Genesis 32: 4. In the Bible, the word malach sometimes means a human messenger—anyone sent to carry out an act on behalf of someone else. Hence the translation in the King James version—followed by Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch…...
Kindling the Imagination
Originally published in the Jewish Chronicle, 10 December 1971. We asked “the rabbi” to give us his personal interpretation of the meaning of the Festival of Light. The Talmud (Shabbat 21b) asks why we keep Chanucah. Every Jewish equivalent of Macaulay’s schoolboy knows the answer given there: “When the Greeks entered the Temple, they defiled all…...
M. J. Field, ‘Angels and Ministers of Grace’
Originally published in the Jewish Chronicle. Fairy tales Angels and Ministers of Grace. By M. J. Field. Longman. £2. The author of this curious book is an ethno-psychiatrist who spent several years in West Africa and whose experiences there have led him to believe that he can discover the true meaning of many Biblical passages. Fantastic…...
Hermann Strack (ed.), ‘The Babylonian Codex of Petrograd’
Originally published in the Jewish Chronicle. The Babylonian Codex of Petrograd. Edited with Preface and Critical Annotations by Hermann L. Strack. Prolegomenon by P. Wernberg-Moller, Ktav, 1971. $50.00. This reprint of one of the oldest manuscripts extant of a section of the Hebrew Bible (the latter prophets) was first published, with Strack’s annotations, in 1876. The…...
Joanna Weinberg (trans. & ed.), ‘The Light of the Eyes’
Originally published in the Jewish Chronicle, 4th January 2002. “The Light of the Eyes” Azariah de Rossi, translated with annotations by Joanna Weinberg, Yale University Press, £48. The Me’or Enayim, (“Light of the Eyes”), by the extraordinary 16th-century Italian polymath, Azariah de Rossi, can rightly be said to be the seminal work of Jewish historiography. De…...
Eugene Borowitz, ‘Unfinished Rabbi: The Selected Writings of Arnold Jacob Wolf’
Originally published in the Times Literary Supplement, 11 September 1998. Arnold Jacob Wolf UNFINISHED RABBI The selected writings of Arnold Jacob Wolf Edited by Eugene B. Borowitz 288pp. Chicago, IL: Ivan R. Dee. £27.50. 156663 183 1 This book contains many of the important essays, previously published in various journals, scholarly and popular, of a remarkable…...