Customer Reviews

A Code of Jewish Ethics, Volume 2: Love Your Neighbor as Yourself

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Rabbi Joseph Telushkin is a rigorous and thoughtful scholar whose perspective on ethics is grounded in the real world. Rabbi Telushkin's knowledge and mastery of Jewish texts is extraordinary, and it is matched by his clear writing style. As a student and teacher of ethics, I recommend Telushkin's works to persons interested in ethics, Judaism, and/or ways that we might live better in the world today. Learn and enjoy at the same time-- and be challenged to live a better life too. Respectfully, Simon Shimshon Rubin, Professor of Clinical Psychology, University of Haifa, Israel.

If you're Christian then please read this book and others by the author. This is the third book I've read by this author, and I've learned so much about the Jewish faith and ethics.

... for two reasons.

First, this book (to a much greater extent than some of Telushkin's earlier works) includes perspectives that differ from his own. For example, on vegetarianism, Telushkin goes back and forth between Maimonides' view (suggesting that meat is mandatory on holy days), later views critiquing Maimonides (including those of Rav Kook, who was not a vegetarian himself, but suggested that meat consumption will end in the Messianic era, and the views of some of his disciples who became vegetarians), and his own intermediate view.

Second, rather than trying to cover every concievable ethics issue, Telushkin covers a few issues in great detail. For example, he spends about 100 pages on charity alone, including 10 on issues relating to beggars.

Integrates biblical references and moral values to very good effect. In fact, the text is very fluent and easy to read with interesting case studies derived from the present time to antiquity. Really makes you think hard and to challenge yourself about new approaches to commonsense thought.

I learned quite a bit from this volume, and it most certainly is not merely a "joke book". It's a scholarly explanation of Jewish humour from a very quailified Rabbi. All in all, it was enjoyable. Not a "keeper" for me, but it did explain the psychology behind a lot of things that have been obscure or even mystifying to me.