4.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating, December 21, 2009
This review is from: Torah a Modern Commentary: Deuteronomy (Torah: A Modern Commentary / W. Gunther Plaut) (Hardcover)
First published in 1981, this edition of the Torah, or Five Books of Moses, includes the Hebrew text in two columns across the top of the pages, with the English translation in a single column directly beneath, and commentary assigned by verses in two columns at the bottom of each page. The footnotes, including various translations, commentaries, and interpretations, often take up two thirds of each page of Torah text.
Fifteen or 20 years ago, at least, this edition of the Torah was favored in many Reform congregations in the U.S. The commentaries are very interesting and quite scholarly. Each book of the Torah is subdivided into many sections or parts, and include many of the Haftarah that accompany each book. These readings from the Prophets always follow Torah readings during Jewish religious services.
Each subsection of the Five Books of Moses is also followed by "Gleanings," a few pages providing quotations from other Jewish sacred books and teachers, and, where relevant, the occasional quotation from other religious traditions.
The volume's main problem is its failure to include the complete Tanach. As noted above, Plaut's "Torah" includes some key prophetic readings from many Biblical books that follow the Five Books of Moses (composing the entire Tanach --- or what Christians call the Old Testament). Yet his "selections" from the later books are far from complete, and therefore wanting.
Nevertheless, this edition has some particularly fascinating commentaries, especially that concerning Genesis, Chapter 22, in which Abraham is ordered to sacrifice his son Isaac. W. Gunther Plaut notes here, "in the beginning of the test the command is issued by Elohim --- the generic term for God or gods --- and the command is one that other elohim could and did make" during Abraham's era.
However, when Abraham is about to perform the sacrifice, "it is Abraham's God, Adonai, who stays his hand. In other words, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob "not only rejects the sacrifice of a son by a father, but rejects, as well, its use as a theological theme. This is in stark contrast to Eastern religions...in which a father's sacrificial gift of his son plays an important role."
Thus, Plaut correctly concludes that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob rejected the contemporary norms of Biblical times, together with any and all acts of child sacrifice.
Plaut's interpretation makes eminent sense, and totally defies both the concept of the "angry God" of the Old Testament favored by Bill Moyers in
Genesis, and his condemnation of Abraham as a mere trickster hiding "behind his wife's skirts" and resorting to cunning. But then, Moyers didn't ask a single Rabbi the meaning of that passage. One can only wonder why anyone listened to him. He had no idea what he was talking about.
Fortunately, while individual rabbinical scholars may disagree over varied interpretations of Biblical passages, for millennia Jewish sages such as
Rashi and
Maimonides have agreed that Torah is open to interpretation. Indeed, they encourage interpretation, teaching that the faithful should deeply question holy texts. The goal, over time: for each person to reach fuller and deeper understanding of HaShem (literally, "The Name" [of G-d]). In large measure, thus has the living, loving Jewish faith --- always in pursuit of truth, peace and justice --- evolved.
---Alyssa A. Lappen
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