The Chumash: The Stone Edition (Artscroll Series) (Hardcover)

Being a convenient, easy to read, concise one volume Chumash, the author had no choice but to narrow his commentary. After all, you cannot fit the waters of the ocean into a bucket. One must understand that the commentary does not even scratch the service of inner meaning of the text. It is simply a minimum line or put in a positive way, a springboard to further study.

So I suppose it is only fair of me to suggest another Chumash that one can advance to. "The Call of the Torah" by Rabbi Elie Munk is a five-volume set also published by Artscroll. Rav Munk combines both the classic commentaries of Rash"i, Ramba"m, Ramba"n etc, the "peshat" of his teacher Rav Hirsh and also the more hidden Torah of Kabbalah. This as well as his own beautiful and intelligent ideas, adds up to a Chumash that is a must for all Jews that wish to delve just that little bit deeper.

Not only is the Stone Chumash an easy-to-read translation with fascinating commentaries, it also includes various tables and charts, such as geneology charts and timelines of events, and drawings of items in the Mishkan, which help give the Torah more meaning. For those who want more depth, the Hebrew text includes all of the traditional commentators in the margins.

The idea that this translation is "biased" toward Rashi is, frankly, laughable.

Where is the evidence for this claim? In the admittedly "extensive and well-researched commentary"?

Glancing over the commentary from last week's parsha (Vayigash) I find citations from the following sources among others: Ibn Ezra; Rambam; R. Avraham ben HaRambam; Ramban; R. Hirsch; R. Menachem Mendel of Kotzk; R. Bachya; R. Shlomo Ashtruc; Sforno; the Chafetz Chaim; R. Munk; R. Yosef Dov Solovetchik; R. Yaakov Kamenetzky; R. David Feinstein (not to mention the Zohar and other traditional texts cited by title rather than by author). Even this is not a complete list, and it is just silly to say that the commentary is "not reflective of the variety that is present within the tradition of rabbinic Judaism."

Nor would it even be correct to say that Rashi's interpretation is given precedence over others' (as would be expected if the translation were controlled by his commentaries). At 45:1, for example, the commentary cites three interpretations, one each from Rashi, Rashbam, and Ramban, without attempting to adjudicate between them. At 46:15 the commentary cites Rashi, then Ibn Ezra's contrary reading, then Ramban's disagreement with Ibn Ezra. And so forth.

Of course Rashi is cited fairly often, as are other solidly tradition-based writers who have written extensive commentaries on the text (i.e., those who are said to be "acceptable [from] a Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) point of view," to those whom our friend regards as "religious extremists"). Why this should be an occasion for surprise or alarm, let alone an indication that something is amiss with the _translation_ in this edition of the Chumash, is more than I can fathom.

Nor is any other evidence offered that Rashi's interpretations have colored or biased the translation itself. And such evidence is very much needed, if only to establish the credibility of the one mounting the claim in question. To put it bluntly, anyone who levels such a charge had better be a highly competent reader of Hebrew himself.

I must therefore suspect that the problem here is with traditional translation and commentary in general. It is exceedingly odd to describe straightforward Orthodox Judaism as "fundamentalism" -- a term much more descriptive of the various "liberal" movements which derisively tagged traditional Judaism as "Orthodoxy" in the first place.

At any rate, such comments do tell the customer something important: this volume is faithful to Torah-based Jewish tradition in a way that even the most conservative "liberal" Jews will find uncomfortable. In other words, if you want to study Torah, this Chumash is just exactly the edition you need.