Celia Gurevitch Jewish Community Library

Last night I posted my review of Jacob Neusner’s Learn Talmud. This morning the author himself posted a comment to my blog entry, confirming my suspicion that it was written for younger readers, specifically eight graders in mind. Professor Neusner also wrote:

But they [the series of books Learn Talmud] is part were adopted for college and adult education courses. A lot of credit for the success of the books goes to my editor, Seymour Rossel, and consulting editor, David Altshuler. It’s nice to think that the series still lives.

For those of you who are not familiar with Jacob Neusner’s name: he wrote or edited hundreds of books. The wikipedia page devoted to his bibliography lists over 600 of them. His own homepage lists his articles and reports as well. Do not be fooled by the sheer volume and assume that the quality of these works are not high. Professor Neusner is amongst the most acknowledged scholars of Rabbinic literature.

Our library has six of his books. Here are their quick summaries (with the exception of the one covered yesterday),

Vanquished Nation, Broken Spirit. The Virtues of the Heart in Formative Judaism.

The author “analyzes the place of emotions in Jewish society and culture. Explaining that emotions are learned and represent judgments, Neusner then postulates that from the 2nd century onwards emotions, politics, and social culture conformed to one another in Jewish society, permitting the nation to survive. Turning to the Rabbinic texts, he finds important change in form but not in what the proper emotions should be: restraint and genial acceptance and concern for the feeling of others.”

The Oral Torah. The Sacred Books of Judaism. An Introduction.

Normative Judaism accepts a dual divine revelation: the written Torah (the five books of Moses) and the oral law, both given by God to the lawgiver on Sinai. Neusner’s excellent introduction explains how the oral law handed down from generation to generation was eventually put into writing and became the Mishnah, and how the Mishnah generated the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmuds. Neusner adeptly elucidates two important points: that God speaks to humanity even today through a continuous interpretation of the oral law, and that Judaism differs from its daughter religions, Christianity and Islam, in its acceptance of the equal validity of the oral law.

The Enchantments of Judaism. Rites of Transformation from Birth through Death.

An excellent explanation of the whys and wherefores of the basic rites and practices of Judaism, including circumcision, marriage, the Passover Seder, grace after meals, mourning and burial, the Sabbath, and the synagogue. This is not a “how-to” book but an in-depth philosophical argument showing why some of these rites exert such a powerful influence on contemporary believing Jews while others do not. Beautifully written, this moving work is reminiscent of the thinking of the great theologian A. J. Heschel of whom Neusner is a disciple.

Invitation to the Talmud. A Teaching Book.

The foreword opens with ” This book invites the reader to try to get in the Talmud. Nowadays, people are scarcely able to try. They do not know how to begin or where–or why. Getting into the Talmud is no easy matter, even for those Jews who are ardent to recover for themselves what their ancestors once knew. This invitation is to join a community of learning men and women, for Talmudic learning is collective. You do not “read” the Talmud, you “learn” it, preferably with a haver, or a fellow student, and always with a rabbi.”

The Way of Torah. An Introduction to Judaism.

The book introduces students to Judaism via a three-pronged examination of its history, its scriptures, and its practices. Neusner first defines Judaism across time, showing its changes and development. He then introduces students to the classic texts of Judaism, the Hebrew Bible, and beyond. Finally, the Torah and Judaism are presented in their living contexts. It is the only interpretive work that addresses Judaism within the context of religious studies in general as opposed to the many other texts that use an historical or scriptural approach exclusively.