for the reasons stated by another reviewer. But this book does beg a few questions. I think Halivni could have gone into more detail about his reasons for believing the Torah's text is imperfect - perhaps by discussing in more depth classical commentators' attempts to explain away those imperfections, and then responding to those attempts. And the entire argument begs a question: if the written Torah is imperfect, how can the oral Torah be any less so?

In this fascinating and provocative book, Rabbi Halivni is arguing that although the written Torah -- the Chumash or Pentateuch -- was most probably "compiled" by Ezra and his entourage after the return from the Babylonian exile, it is nonetheless still 'Holy Writ' because the work of Ezra was a successful "restoration" of the Torah given to Moses. Although Halivni probably does not mean that the structure and textual surface of the Chumash closely resembles whatever written Torah crossed the Jordan with Joshua, Halivni does most likely mean that the content of the Chumash reliably expresses the content of the Sinaitic revelation, and contains remnants of whatever writings Moses produced or had produced during the Sinai sojourn.

If there is some uncertainty about Halivni's views concerning the superficial similarity of the Chumash with the original written Torah, it is because Halivni's focus is on the evidence for and theological implications of the notion that the present written Torah is the product of a restorative project by Ezra and his entourage. Halivni argues that the very fact that the Chumash contains uncertain passages, self-contradictions, and laws at variance with the Oral Torah, means that the compilers were working with source documents that were already considered so sacred that the compilers felt they could not make any corrections to the text being compiled. They selected and arranged the scriptural heritage, but they dared not correct it or add to it. Their project was to "restore" a unified written Torah from the strands and traditions available to them. They operated more like those who restore damaged paintings, than as painters.

Halivni aims to show that traditional Judaism can survive the onslaught of critical scholarship because the probablility that the written Torah is a composite document compiled from strands and traditions doesn't mean that it isn't a trustworthy "restoration" of the Torah given to Moses. If the component strands and traditions were various reliable witnesses to, or remanants of, the original Sinaitic revelation, then a restorative compilation of those trustworthy witnesses renders a written Torah which is Holy Writ.

There are many interesting sub-arguments in this book, all insightful, and I highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in Jewish Biblical Criticism or theology of revelation.

Halivni's book will not satisfy those looking for a Holocaust memoir. He is not a professional Holocaust survivor or bad novelist like Elie Wiesel. Rather he is a scholar. He started out as a child prodigy in Talmud, but never had a chance to attend a real yeshiva. After the war he turned down such opportunities to get a doctorate in philosophy and develop academic textual criticism of the Talmud at the Jewish Theological Seminary. He was a very big fish at JTS, but the water turned rancid when they abandoned Jewish law in favor of feminist correctness. He then went to Columbia University, but now every major university offers doctorates in Talmud.

He makes a heartbreaking admission to us at one point. He says he cannot transmit the highest level of his methodology to his students. I would like to be charitable to so long-suffering a man, but doesn't it mean he has failed? What use is a method that exists only in his own head?

Although he never says so, I'm afraid Halivni realized at some point he was not an adult prodigy. If he went to Lakewood with Rav Kotler or Yeshiva University with Rav Soloveitchik he would never have been among the first rank of scholars. He admits to the sin of envy, and that shortcoming drove him to isolation and failure. That, not Auschwitz, is the true tragedy of his life.

As another reviewer wrote, this is not just a Holocaust memoir. Halivni writes about his Holocuast experiences, but many others have done the same at greater length. What I got out of this book was:

1. His discussion of pre-Holocuast shtetl life: its scholarship, its isolation, its sheer backwardness in many areas (for example, when one relative told the author's grandfather that the boy was "turning modern" because he ate with a fork instead of with his hands, and read secular newspapers). Unless you eat with your hands and avoid newspapers, you will find it much harder after reading this book to believe that Jews should be bound by every custom of their ancestors.

2. His attempt to describe his own ideological position: more respectful of traditional halakhah than modern Conservatives, more critical of traditional interpretations than some Orthodox commentators. You can find plenty of books by commentators to Halivni's right, and plenty by commentators to his left, but I would be surprised if you could find any by people who think exactly what he thinks (assuming there are any). As a result, his book is unique or nearly so - and for this reason alone, his book is worth reading and will probably challenge you whatever your views.

Another reviewer said that Halivni is not among the "first rank" of scholars. (I am not enough of a scholar to intelligently agree or disagree). But even if this were the case, I would recommend this book. I've learned quite a bit from people who weren't in the "first rank" of scholars - many of whom, I suspect, are not of Halivni's rank.

This small book covers an enormous range of subjects. Chasidic life in a shtetyl, the Holocaust, conflict within the Jewish institutions of higher learning in post war America, the personal psychological impact of being a Holocaust survivor, and the various modes of Talmudic scholarship - Halivin's great accomplishment is to bring meaning to this wide spectrum of topics in few words. This is a book by a serious thinker who is not afraid to risk revealing his innermost feelings and conflicts. A courageous work