The Bookshelf
Eternally Eve: Images of Eve in the Hebrew Bible, Midrash, and Modern Jewish Poetry by Anne Lapidus Lerner, Brandeis University Press, 2007
Much has been written about the biblical matriarchs, but what, apart from a few verses in Genesis, has been written about our ultimate mother, the mother of us all, Adam’s helpmate, Eve? A great deal, as it turns out. Dr. Lerner, who teaches Jewish literature and directs the program in Jewish women’s studies at the Jewish Theological Seminary, begins by reading the Genesis passages very closely. She then weaves together a thoroughly enchanting “conversation,” an extended midrash on those passages where the participants are the sages of the Talmud and modern Hebrew, Yiddish and English poets, some of them familiar, many of them not. In the process, we learn much about the role of the serpent, Eve’s sexuality, the so-called “forbidden” fruit, that traditional “rib” from which Eve apparently was created, God’s feelings about the drama in the garden, and not at all incidentally the biblical construction of gender. Ample glossaries and indexes contribute a great deal to the accessibility of Dr. Lerner’s work, but the book is indispensable simply because Eve’s story is our story.
Jews and Power by Ruth R. Wisse, Schocken Books, 2007
Dr. Wisse, professor of Yiddish literature and of comparative literature at Harvard University, also writes extensively on cultural and political issues confronting the Jewish people and the state of Israel. This provocative essay traces Jewish involvement with power from the kingdom of David to the Oslo accords. For Dr. Wisse the paradox is that for much of history Jewish power expressed itself passively, through dependence and accommodation to neighboring powers and reliance on divine power. The creation of the state of Israel subverted that policy and the resultant upheaval raised an entirely new set of challenges that Israel – and all who are concerned with its fate – are struggling to confront. But familiar patterns die hard, and the tension between those older responses and the new realities form the heart of this slim book. Dr. Wisse is not at all loath to express her own convictions, which makes her contribution particularly controversial.
The Book of Psalms, A Translation with Commentary by Robert Alter, W.W. Norton and Company, 2007
Dr. Alter, who teaches Hebrew and comparative literature at the University of California, Berkeley, has won acclaim for his translations of the Five Books of Moses and the two books of Samuel (published as The David Story) as well as for his literary analyses of biblical texts and modern Hebrew literature. Here he turns his considerable skills to a more challenging task, the 150 poems that comprise the book of Psalms. This is not a book to be read cover to cover, but rather to be dipped into, preferably with the Hebrew text alongside, and maybe with other translations, such as the King James version and the Jewish Publication Society’s 1985 TaNaKH. For those familiar with the more traditional translations, a surprise awaits at every turn. In the concluding words of Psalm 23, the psalmist will dwell in the house of the Lord “for many long days,” not “forever”; Dr. Alter’s commentary emphasizes, surely correctly, that the viewpoint of the psalm is the here and now and not at all eschatological. An extended introduction expands on the book itself, its canonization, the Hebrew text, and issues of translation. A rich treasury.
For the Love of God and People: A Philosophy of Jewish Law by Elliot N. Dorff, Jewish Publication Society, 2007
Dr. Dorff, newly appointed chair of the Conservative movement’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards and professor at the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies in Los Angeles, has emerged as one of the movement’s most prolific voices, both on specific issues of halakhah and more generally on the theological and philosophical issues that underlie the movement’s approach to Jewish law. This volume assembles a number of articles, many previously published, that when taken together form a remarkably accessible exposition of topics more generally designated for rabbis and academicians. Anyone familiar with Dr. Dorff’s general outlook will anticipate that the position articulated here reflects the more liberal wing of the movement, but the scholarly documentation supporting his opinions is thoroughgoing. If you have puzzled over whether or not the movement has a consistent approach to these issues in the first place and what that approach may be, this should be required reading.
Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel: The Ultimate Victory of the God of Life by Jon D. Levenson, Yale University Press, 2006; Life After Death: A History of the Afterlife in Western Religion by Alan F. Segal, Doubleday, 2004
After centuries of neglect, the issue of Jewish approaches to the afterlife is hot once again. Harvard University’s Jon D. Levenson has written what he characterizes as a challenge to “the consensus view” among scholars on the history and development of Jewish thinking about life after death. A challenge it surely is. Dr. Levenson’s version of this “consensus view” is recorded in his very first page. It maintains, among other claims, that not until the very end of the biblical age – roughly the Maccabean era – does the notion that the dead will rise again emerge in Judaism. Dr. Levenson challenges this notion and the rest of this consensus view in a series of rigorously argued analyses of biblical, extra-biblical, and rabbinic texts. In contrast, Dr. Segal, professor of Jewish studies at Barnard College, not only affirms the consensus view on the Jewish doctrine but extends it into a wide-ranging comparative study of doctrines of the afterlife throughout western religions. While Dr. Levenson demands an intensive, highly imaginative reading of selected texts, Dr. Segal’s demands relate to his wide range of scholarly material, from ancient and modern disciplines. Hard work but rewarding in both cases.
Rabbi Neil Gillman teaches Jewish philosophy at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City.
