New Liberal Torah Commentary Spotlights Work of Medieval Luminaries
By JENNIFER SIEGEL (The Forward
January 27, 2006
For decades, English-speaking rabbis have been employing innovative academic, literary and theological approaches to produce fresh commentaries on the Bible that would resonate with their modern-day congregants. But as the yearly Torah cycle reached the book of Exodus this month, Rabbi Michael Holzman tried out what qualifies these days as a more radical approach: He is directing his Reform students to an all-medieval lineup of Judaism's most revered biblical commentators.
At a class held last week at Congregation Rodeph Shalom, a Reform synagogue in Philadelphia, Holzman — along with Orthodox and Reconstructionist colleagues — introduced 100 students to "The Commentators' Bible," an annotated edition of Exodus released last September by the Jewish Publication Society. The new commentary relies predominantly on four medieval rabbis — Rashi, Rashbam, Ibn Ezra and Nachmanides — who generally wrote from what typically would be described today as an Orthodox perspective. Among their assumptions is the belief that the Torah was a unified document revealed by God to Moses on Mount Sinai. Additional commentary from a half-dozen other medieval scholars, including Abarbanel and Sforno, is also included.
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According to [Arielle] Levites, [a JPS spokesperson,] JPS would like to follow up the new commentary on Exodus with similar works dedicated to the four other books of the Torah. She said that JPS and Carasik opted to do Exodus first, because tackling Genesis, which has more associated commentary, would have been a tougher opening act. In addition, she said, Exodus contains a representative sampling of the Torah's various literary styles, including narrative and legal portions.
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Sounds very useful.
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