Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary; Travel-size (JPS Bible Commentary)

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: Regretfully this commentary is a serious disappointment and in many ways inferior to the Reform Movement's 1981 humash (Pentateuch and Haftarahs) The Torah: A Modern Commentary by W. Gunther Plaut (hereafter Plaut ) -

Etz Hayim is designed to replace the venerable The Pentateuch and Haftorahs: Hebrew Text English Translation and Commentary by J. H. Hertz (hereafter Hertz) in Conservative Jewish congregations. Hertz was written as a polemic against Higher Criticism. Higher Criticism concluded that the Torah (Genesis to Deuteronomy) was not dictated by God to Moses as per Jewish tradition but rather was written by people and had multiple origins and its composition involved a long and complex process. In a way, the Conservative movement, which has long accepted the legitimacy of Higher Criticism, has shown a lack of intellectual integrity, or at least, historical seriousness, in its use of Hertz.

To start on a positive note, in my view the strongest element of Etz Hayim is the introductions to the weekly haftarot.
Etz Hayim has 3 on-page commentary sections - (i) commentary to help the reader to understand the text in its historical-social context; (ii) commentary giving its relation to Jewish tradition and important issues raised; (iii) Halakha Lemaaseh - how the text relates to current Jewish practice. Commentary (i) explicating the text in its historical-social context, is culled from the 5 volume JPS Torah Commentary. However, the topical essays, almost all the elements of the JPS Torah Commentary relating to the history of the text and a great deal of interest to serious students has been left out. Thus Etz Hayim cannot be considered an adequate substitute for the JPS Torah Commentary in any serious non-traditional Torah study. Needless to say, those Jews interested in strictly traditional study of the Torah would use a book such as The Stone Edition of the Chumash - The Torah, Haftaros, and Five Megillos with a commentary from Rabbinic writings by Rabbi Nosson Scherman not Etz Hayim.
The essay section of Etz Hayim (pp 1339-1503) is virtually a compact course covering most Torah-related issues. Since the essays were written by a range of scholars various viewpoints are presented and there is a lack of coherence. The essays, like the commentary are aimed at the non-specialist audience - amekha in Conservative parlance. The essays are extremely brief and not always clear and, unlike Plaut, no bibliographies are provided to guide further reading. Another serious defect which will minimize the essays usefulness is the lack of cross-referencing between the on-page commentaries and the relevant essays. This lack of cross-referencing will greatly reduce the reference by readers to the essays.

In the, far too brief, section on Modern Methods of Bible Study (pp1499-1503) the author does, very briefly, outline the salient features of Source Criticism (pp1500-1501) and what they term Literary Criticism. It is important to understand the difference -

"In simple terms, source criticism is interested in cutting up the texts to find different layers of tradition; literary criticism considers the text as it stands now, as a whole, not as it may once have been. Literary criticism is both like and unlike traditional Jewish commentary. It looks at the Bible as a unified whole but has no theological commitment and sees it as the creation of human authors. Source criticism is interested in history; literary criticism treats historical questions as basically unanswerable and understands texts as literary products or objects, not as windows on historical reality. Literary criticism sees texts as coherent wholes that create meaning through the integration of their elements, irrespective of the authors and their intentions." (pp1501-1502).

The general approach of Etz Hayim seems to be

LITERARY CRITICISM+THEOLOGICAL COMITTMENT+ECLECTIC (sometimes tendentious) ILLUSTRATIONS FROM ARCHAEOLOGY, HISTORY ETC

As a person strongly committed to the study of history I find this approach deeply unsettling and rather pathetic as a product of the "Historical School". In Avot (chapt 2 mishnah 21) Rabbi Tarfon teaches "You are not obliged to finish the task but neither are you free to neglect it." Since the Renaissance Western Culture has understood history in a way quite different from the many cultures and civilizations that proceeded it. I do not believe that it is intellectually honest to ignore our understanding of history in trying to understand Jewish history and pre-history. Historical source analysis cannot give us sure answers but they certainly can often produce a balance of probabilities and as R Tarfon indicated we are not free to ignore it if we are to be intellectually honest.

In general, I would say, that the treatment is historically naive. The commentary and most of the essays seem to ignore the historical issues raised by historical-source criticism. Thus they carry on with the traditional assumptions that the material in Genesis really historically proceeds that in the rest of the Torah which, in turn, proceeds that in First Isaiah and Jeremiah. In fact, a very good case could be, and has been, made that the Genesis material is among the youngest in the Torah and that much of the legal material in the Torah is exilic. Without saying it this way, the approach is ---- we recognize that the Torah is a human document with a complex past but will largely accept the Torah as is as the basis for discussion and drawing conclusions even where we realize that the result is not historically valid.

Etz Hayim is terribly weak in the handling of some key ethical issues. Take for example the Torah's demand that the Israelites exterminate the Canaanites - man, woman and child (Deuteronomy, chapters 7 and 20). Given the importance
of this issue in the post-Holocaust period, I had expected Etz Hayim to deal with it seriously and at length. Regrettably the treatment in Etz Hayim is inferior even to that in Plaut and even in the old, pre-Holocaust, Hertz. This is astonishing as its prime source for Deuteronomy - the JTS Commentary by Tigai - has a whole excursus (pp. 470-472) on the subject.

Etz Hayim, unlike Plaut, generally ignores similarities with, and links to non-Jewish traditions.

There is a need for a Conservative humash suitable for the use of intellectually curious congregants with historical interests. A modified Plaut could fill this need. Such a modified Plaut should feature the following:

a. historical and archaeological references brought up to date
b. One chapter per parashah subdivided to reflect the triennial cycle. The relevant haftarahs should be at the end of each chapter.
c. discussions of modern Jewish views and practices centered on those of the Conservative Movement but not limited to it
d. heavier paper
e. haftarah commentaries similar to those in Etz Hayim
f. bigger English and Hebrew fonts
g. Hebrew and English in parallel columns

Regrettably no one seems interested in producing such a work.

David L. Steinberg "http://www.houseofdavid.ca/" (Ottawa, Canada)

Rating:
Summary: Reader's Digest version of JPS commentaries
Review: The Etz Hayim commentary suffers in that many readers are familiar with the full commentaries of each of the five books in the JPS series where the full reasoning behind the remarks is revealed.

The series of essays in the back of the volume is entertaining, but why not go out on a limb like the authors of the various commentaries did in their unabridged versions and provide a full bibliography to set readers desiring something more in depth a list of places to go. The strength of the Conservative movement has always been its command of the depth and breadth of prior scholarship. Without this anchor in the past I really don't know what it is that they are conserving.

The system of transliteration in Hebrew is one that is very different from the one that is used in Israel. Beit instead of Bet only makes sense if your mother tongue is German rather than English. A revision would be nice.

Lastly, why bother to include the Hebrew text of the Torah unless you are going to exploit that by making at least a sprinkling of remarks related to the Hebrew language or grammar. Rather than criticize the Reform movement as Elliot Dorff does at p. 1477, the RA and USCJ should invest in a modern page layout program that will allow them to add a little Hebrew back into the commentary and notes. The religious language of the Jewish people remains Hebrew and the commentary once it is shorn of its Hebrew language content is greatly weakened like Shimshon (Samson) without a full head of hair.

In sum, attractive and easy to read, but disappointing in terms of content.