Customer Reviews

Ramban (Nachmanides : Commentary on the Torah)

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I would have wished that the books had included the original Hebrew text. The translation is not literal by any stretch of the imagination, and the portions that I needed for a law review journal article that I am working on did not even attempt to translate clauses that were crucial for my purposes. I refer, for example, to the translation of Exodus 4:23 in which Ramban expatiates upon how Lemech reminded his wives, who feared that he would be punished for having invented metal working including sword making, as Cain had been punished for having killed Abel with fists and rocks, and thus allegedly had enabled many others to commit murder. The portion that was completely missing in the translation dealt with how Lemech "reminded them that not only with the sword or the spear can a man kill also with bruises and or lacerations in a much more horrible death than with a sword, and the maker of thesword does not bear the sin kill, but the evildoer does."

These omitted words of wisdom loom large in the currently raging firearm control and prohibition debate.

If any of you would like to communicate with me by e-mail, my e-mail address is: david_i_caplan@hotmail.com

specially interesting is the complement of information regarding Maimonides explanation of the Tora ,not always in the same direction as our author. I feel the aproach of Nahmanides more human while Maimonides looks more rational.

A perceptive reader has correctly pointed out to me that I made an obvious mistake in my first review. The Biblical reference to the Nachmanides commentary should have been to GENESIS 4:23 and NOT to "Exodus 4:23" as I had written previously . After all, Lemech (also spelled Lamech) died long before Moses was born; and in Exodus, ch. 4, Moses is already a grown man.