Of the five commentaries in the JPS series on the first five books of the Bible, Milgrom's is the best.

Milgrom's commentary reveals a healthy respect for classical Jewish commentators but doesn't hesitate to address and add modern Biblical research. Milgrom excels when explaining the more obscure portions of Numbers, such as the rituals, calendars, and sacrifices. In addition to his verse by verse commentary, Milgrom adds lengthy excurses, exploring in more depth the issues raised in the commentary.

For example, his insights into the meaning of "tzitzit" - the fringes attached to four cornered garments - are outstanding. Milgrom argues that attaching the linen tzitzit with the dyed blue thread (techelet) to one's garment as required by the text, rendered the garment "shaatnez" - a forbidden combination of wool and linen. Milgrom notes that "shaatnez" is generally forbidden to be worn, but was permitted to be used in the construction of the Tabernacle and the clothing of the priests. By allowing, indeed requiring, every Israelite to attach shaatnez tzitzit to the corners of his/her garments, the Bible was drumming into the people the mandate that they be "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation."

Similarly, Milgrom's treatment of the paradox of the Red Cow, whose ashes purified those rendered impure by contact with the dead but rendered impure those who handled them is a tour de force of modern Biblical scholarship.

On almost every page, you will enjoy reading insights you may never before have come across. This book is a treasure for anyone willing to spend the time it requires.

Like all the volumes in the JPS Torah commentary series, this volume is simply the best in its area. It contains the complete Hebrew text of Genesis, the JPS's new English translation, and an extensive original commentary that illuminates the text like a 1000 watt searchlight. On average, each four or five lines of text gets a full page of explanation and commentary, so every subject gets covered in detail.

Like all the JPS Torah commentators, this work use of traditional rabbinic commentaries, and the Mishna, Midrash and Talmud. But it doesn't end here: The commentary goes on to make good use of literary analysis and comparative Semitics; intertextual commentary relating each book to other biblical books, and evidence from modern archaeological, discoveries.

JPS Torah commentary is excellent. It has been an outstanding tool in my personal study of the Law. The scholarship is evident and the detailed comments provide great insight into the scriptures. Highly recommended for students of the Law.

Sanford Sternlicht's CHAIM POTOK: A CRITICAL COMPANION is part of the Critical Companions to Popular Contemporary Writers series put out by Greenwood Press. Having worked at a public library reference desk, serving high school students in very real need of in-depth sources on modern writers, I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It admirably and thoroughly fills a serious scholarly gap for students needing information on Potok, one of our greatest modern Jewish American writers. In addition, the book is an interesting and informative read on its own. What I found in the book piqued my interest and I plan to read at least three of Potok's novels.

The book leads the reader to an understanding of Chaim Potok and his works on many fronts. There is a short biography of Potok, an analysis of his literary acheivements and his sources of inspiration, and then an most helpful analysis of each of his eight novels; each novel is assigned its own chapter.

A most intriguing feature in Sternlicht's book is his explanation of various styles of literary criticism, followed by an application of that style of criticism to a Potok novel (i.e., psychoanalytic theory is applied to The Chosen, reader-response criticism is applied to The Book of Lights, feminist criticism is applied to Davita's Harp, etc.). Far from being a dry or dull, these discussions and analyses are clearly written and shed light on aspects of the novel that the reader may have never before considered.

Another fine aspect of the book is that Sterlicht provides the historical background of each novel as well as character and plot development and thematic and symbolic elements. Each of these aspects of the novel being discussed is laid out in a clear, concise, and logical fashion, making the book very easy to use for students doing research on Potok's novels.

I don't think that anyone could ask for a clearer or more balanced analysis of Chaim Potok's novels than what Mr. Sternlicht has provided in CHAIM POTOK: A CRITICAL COMPANION. It belongs in all secondary school, undergraduate, and public libraries, and in the private libraries of anyone who enjoys Potok, American literature, and/or just a plain old good read.

Sternlicht's qualifications as a prolific author and as professor of both English and Judaic studies at Syracuse University are very much in evidence in this volume. He has performed a great service both to Mr. Potok and to lovers and students of literature everywhere.

This is a book that evokes the broad spectrum of books that Chaim Potok has written, but most especially The Chosen. Beginning with a history of the author and then a history of the Jewish-American novelist, Sternlicht gives us the advantage of his teaching in the Jewish Studies program at Syracuse University. Each novel is then adressed, with a careful description that brings back the delight of its original reading, and then followed by a discussion in its larger historic and ideational context. It is a most enjoyable and informative book, reminds one of the pleasure from earlier Potok novels, and I hope for more of the same from Sternlicht.

The "official" reviewers at Hornbook and Kirkus who didn't like this book must not have been uprooted as kids. I went to five different grade schools, so I could relate.

Yes, the story is slow-paced, and there are some loose ends that never get tied up, but that's the way real life is when your Dad gets transferred and you have to leave everything familiar behind. Life doesn't always move at the speed of a video game. The value of the book is that it acknowledges the sad feelings that kids have about moving. It squarely faces up to the impact of seeing your room disassembled into boxes, the friends who wave goodbye forever, a last visit to the family cemetery, the favorite tree you leave behind...

Ah yes, the tree. It's a big dogwood in Jason's front yard, where he likes to climb and listen to secrets whispered to him among the leaves. The tree is firmly rooted in the ground -- it's the tree of HERE, where Jason wishes he could stay forever. The gardener, Mr. Healy (nice reference to "heal") has taught him all about plants and how to care for them, and the tree is worried that Jason is leaving. Who will take care of it now? Jason reassures the tree that the new people will keep Mr. Healy on as their gardener. Then, just before Jason's family pulls away in the car, Mr. Healy gives him a wonderful gift -- a young dogwood tree to plant in the yard of his new home. Which he does. Both Jason and his little tree will put down new roots. (This I can REALLY relate to -- I planted trees in every place we ever lived. Sometimes I wonder if those trees are still there...)

All in all, I like this book a lot -- too bad it went out of print. The illustrations have a surrealistic quality in places, moving back and forth between what is going on around Jason, and the thoughts and feelings inside his Jason's head. There's one blooper, though. The story says that "a nest of robins" had lived in a hole in the big dogwood tree. Sorry, Mr. Potok, but robins don't nest in holes! It was a nest of starlings maybe???

Jason's family moves to Boston, and he has to say goodbye to his house, his friends, his school, his garden inhabited by squirrels and redrobins. For Jason departure is a great sorrow, that makes him feel empty inside: it's not the first time he has to abandon familiar and loved things in order to go from a "here" to a "there". Ah, if he could just plant his roots like the great tree growing in front of his house, a tree that at times whispers secrets and stories to him! And then, on departing, Mr Healy the gardener offers him a present: something that, wherever he goes, will help Jason to build a new "here"... A short story by poetic Potok, a delicate and profound one, written for children by one of the great novelists of our times. Why is it out of print? Don't kids deserve beauty instead of Japanese electronic junk?

Having recently visited The Holocaust Museum, I felt compelled to own this book as a tangible memory. The book captures the essence of the holocaust experience with outstanding images and words, often understated, that continue to evoke the emotions felt in the museum.

Like always, Chaim Potok's THE SKY OF NOW was very entertaining. It was very interesting for me (a reader of Potok's adult novels) to read a story aimed at a much younger audience. Five stars to THE SKY OF NOW!

I recently was in the play "I Never Saw Another Butterfly". One of my teachers brought in this book for our class to look at. My friend and I played the parts of the Nazis. We saw this book and it brought tears to our eyes. We saw drawings and poems done by the children that were mentioned in the play. This book is very interesting, but I suggest you read it with a box of Kleenex.

Hana Valavkova's "I Never Saw Another Butterfly..." although focusing on the ghetto of Terezin through poems, paintings, and drawings made by the children there, does an amazing job of demonstrating just how powerful Hitler and his agenda were; not just in terms of history, or the past, but in terms of emotion, depth, and human life. The works illustrated in this text show the wide range of emotion prevalent in such horrendous circumstances. And, even more touching, the emotion prevalent amongst the children, both survivors and victims of death, forced to endure the very suffering that no one, especially a child, should have to bear.
While one can easily discern fact or history from Valavkova's "I Never Saw Another Butterfly..." the poems and drawings offer much more than just fact. They offer emotion, hope, maturity, and haunting despair. They reveal much more than the conditions of Terezin's ghetto, but also the condition of human life in these circumstances. The whole of this book is one that offers each and every reader the opportunity to not only gain knowledge about the holocaust and the people forced to endure it's conditions, but also the opportunity to experience and attempt to understand the emotion that existed alongside the hunger, disease, and terror in the ghettos of Nazi Germany.
In essence, Valavkova's text offers great insight into the emotion, depth, and life of those that fell victim to Hitler's anti-semitic ideology. Her book presents each reader with the opportunity to open up their hearts and feel what history is all about.

I was recently in the play I never saw another butterfly. I played one of the children durning the holocaust. In the play I read a poem that was in the book I never saw another butterfly, and the poem brought me to tears. When our director brought in the actual book, and I read all of the other poems and saw all of the other drawings i was overwhelmed by the pain and struggle that was portrayed in the book. I hope that others are as lucky to read this book as i was.

Beautiful, well crafted novel about a young man discovering himself as an individual separate from his father, his teachings, and his family. As in "The Chosen." Potok is a master at making the reader excited about learning for its own sake. Unlike "The Chosen", this is a far slower, deeper, and ultimatly moving story. Prepare yourself for the slow pace, but jump in. It's worth it.

Among Potok's fantastic novels, this one stands above the rest in it's moving intellectual and emotional sincerity and honesty. In a way it is unfortunate that this book was not his debute novel instead of The Chosen, since the greatness of this book seems to get lost behind his more well known titles like My Name Is Asher Lev.

Perhaps it is fitting that I should love so much his most obscure title considering this book's power is in the understanding Potok has of the quiet genius no one seems to understand, yet who struggles so desparately to try to understand the world and his place in it. His brilliance brings him suffering. At the climactic confrontation between David and his father, I sobbed. You just do not know unless you live it. How many quiet geniuses are there to identify--and fall in love--with this book?

And perhaps it is this identification and the fact that his novel's are so autobiographical (Potok did indeed "live it") that I felt such a profound loss at Potok's death on July 23, 2002. For as long as I am able to read, for as long as there are printed pages I will love him through his books. Thank you, Dr. Potok, so much for Ilana Davita, for Asher Lev, for Danny and Reuven, but thank you especially for David Lurie. He has shown me a beginning. . .

This is a very good book, like most of Potok's other works, it is centered around a Jewish adolescent,(orthodox, of course) coming of age and learning how to interact with his parents.

This book was, in some ways, a departure from Potok's earlier works about Hasidism. This takes place before THE CHOSEN, and MY NAME IS ASHER LEV, and has barely any mention of the "pious ones", save for the character's father voicing his distaste for them.

This is the story of every typical jewish kid in NYC in the between-war-years, (with the exception of the constant illness this caracter is afflicted with) and for that, it is very successful.

Reading this, for me, was invaluable in doing genealogy research on my family. This helped me get in the "mindset of the time". My family, like the family of the main character, had come over, had children, and then watched their relatives get killed in Europe, and this gave me a very good sense of what it was like, from the American viewpoint.

It showed how the Americanized Jews dealt with the problems in Palestine, how Jews and gentiles interacted, all the while with Henry Ford and Father Couglin taking up arms against them [the Jews]. It also showed how they responded to the early Nazism in 1930s Germany, and then what happened when they learned the awful truth.

Like most of Potok's main characters, this one is involved in Torah and Talmudic study, so non-jews and secular ones, BEWARE: YOU MIGHT HAVE TO LOOK SOMETHING UP! (oh, the horror!)

But, despite whatever minor issues one might have with this book, it succeeds in the end, and it is a very compelling story.

I had never read anything by Chaim Potok when a friend recommended this novel to me a couple weeks ago. I have a feeling that I will soon be getting to know his literature very well. There are so many wonderful things to say about this novel. The reading of My Name is Asher Lev is almost a physical experience. I found it impossible to set the book aside, and upon reading the last page, I was totally exhausted.

My Name is Asher Lev is the fictional memoir of Asher Lev. Asher traces his life from the time he was a toddler being raised in a Chasidic Jewish community in Brooklyn. From the beginning, Asher has powerful artistic impulses which Asher's father looks upon as foolishness. As he grows, Ashers artistic impulses and talents thrive throwing him into deep conflict with his family and with his faith.

The novel is so powerful and well-written. I am a nineteen-year-old for years has for years felt the urge to become a writer. I have never read anything where the demands and nature of art were better captured. Also, the characterizations of Asher and his family and all of the "small" supporting characters are so apt and powerful. The evocation of the religious community that Asher lives in is compelling. There is really nothing less than perfect about this novel. My Name is Asher Lev should certainly go down as a classic.

I read this book June 1998, after having read 5 others of Chaim Potok's wonderful novels. And this time I was drawn to this book after reading "The Jewish Phenomenon" followed by, "When All You've Ever Wanted Isn't Enough."

While "My Name is Asher Lev," is a story of an artist, who is an Observant Jew, more importantly, I saw this book to reflect the challenges that many of us have in living our life's purpose, especially those who discover their life's purpose long after everyone around them has a different view of their role in life.

It's a threat to those who love you to watch you live within your life's mission, when they have spent their lives living according to blind loyalty, traditions, and unquestioned habits.

And it takes courage to redefine who you are, while you ride out the anger, fear, envy and hate that family members can have, as Asher Lev's father, Aryeh, seemed to have of his gifted son.

Here was a boy whose father's father, and all those before him followed what the Rebbe and his ancestors dictated is right for them. But Asher Lev found a way to combine both worlds, the Christian and the Jewish, through his art forms.

This is a wonderful book for anyone to read, slowly, as you reflect upon your own challenges, and your desire to live a balanced life.

Another message within this beautiful story is that when you believe that you should be doing what you believe God sent you to do, you must find mentors who will not allow you to run away from your life's purpose.

Thank you Chaim Potok.

Asher Lev, a Jewish boy in Brooklyn, has painting in his blood. Anything he comes in contact with is transformed into a drawing, an image, a colour: his house, mother, father, friends, streets. Yet, in a culture such as the Hebrew, traditionally hostile to icons, Asher's vocation is destined to create difficulties and arguments, and finally a dramatic rupture. Asher meets a teacher, goes to Europe, to Florence, Rome, Paris... When he returns to New York, he's already a renowned artist. He then decides to tackle a fundamental theme in the history of painting, the Crucifixion, engendering a new conflict with his father and his original cultural environment. In this book, Potok - a true poet of narration - continues to analyze the deep themes of his great novels: the confrontation between modernity and tradition, the relationship between faith and art, the contrast between the individual and the various groups he belongs to, by birth or choice.

The Promise is a very compelling sequel to The Chosen. The novel follows up nicely on the lives of Reuven and Danny as they pursue their respective careers. Reuven is trying to become an ordained Rabbi and faces many obstacles from Rabbi Klavman along the way. The Conservative Hasidim values conflict greatly with the somewhat more Modern Orthodox ways. Whereas the reader is hooked on how this issue will be resolved, there is too much detail spent on quotes from the Talmud. These ramblings will cause less religious Jews and many of those from other faiths to lose interest in these parts.

The struggles that Danny faces when trying to heal Michael, a troubled cousin of Rachel, who at first is Reuven's girlfriend and later develops an interest in Danny. Danny's controversial method causes some critical ramifications in this story. Whereas this story offers some compelling twists and turns, it seems odd that Rachel switches her romantic interests from Reuven to Danny. There seems to be little resistance/hurt feelings from Reuven which is a bit odd. Did I miss something here?

Overall this book is very good as it discusses some important issues that occur within religious sects. Whereas parts of it will lose the attention of some audiences, it does continue to send an important message. Religious Groups should be more accepting from within in order for them to thrive.

All of Chaim Potok's books teach you more than you could possibly aspire to learn. And in this book, Potok tells the story of the struggle between Jewish traditions and finding your own voice.

There are 3 main characters:
·Reuven, who is raised as an Orthodox Jew, and whose
studies are focused upon his becoming a rabbi.
·Danny, who was raised as a Hasidic (the most conforming
of Jewish sects, but becomes a Psychologist, who marries
a woman who is not Hasidic.
·Danny, who becomes hospitalized after his enraged
reaction to not having won a prize that he was due to
win.

I first read this book in 1998, after reading one Potok book after another. And back then, I remember telling myself, "It would be nice if every man read "The Promise," and "The Chosen," so that they are able to break the father/son struggle to be human beings, without fear of being feminine.

Now, as I review my favorite quote from "The Promise,"

("I know what it's like to be inside a small room, fighting. I was inside a small room too. But I talked. I fought back. You have to learn to talk and fight back. You have to learn to do it even if it hurts people you respect and love. You're not anything unless you can learn to do that ... And sometimes you have to fight even if it means hurting people terribly. Sometimes you have to hurt a person you love if you want to be yourself.). I see that Potok's demonstration of how conflict between traditional Orthodox Judaism and modern ideas is but a ripple in the pond of every culture, every world struggle, and every relationship. This is a call for human beings to give others room to be authentic, without revenge.

The promise is to be a human being.

This is a great read starting at 10 years old. It will stretch who you are, and give you a voice unmatched by other stories.

At first glance the book did not interest me. However, I LOVED IT!!! After reading The Promise I read the Chosen as well. Both excellent. Chaim Potok's prose is simply amazing--vivid and strong.
At the end of the novel I realized just how attached I had gotten to the characters. I wasn't ready to end the adventure with the characters. I became submerged in the plot. This insightful masterpiece was just the kind of book to remind me why people write in the first place. This just proves how amazing Chaim Potok truly is.

Although this tale is somewhat wooden in execution and its characters never come fully to life, and while the thrust of the tale, itself, is an intellectual rather than a visceral one, I was greatly moved by it. There is a tradition in the Talmud that four great sages sought to go beyond the realm of man's knowledge. One died. One went insane. One became a heretic. And only the great Akiba came out of it whole, only to be tortured to death by the Romans in the aftermath of the third abortive rebellion against the Empire. Well, Elisha ben Abuyah, the central character of this tale, is the one who became a heretic. He is recalled in the Talmud as a member of the Rabbinate who forsook his faith and people for the Greek way, thereby condemning himself, in life and memory, to excommunication and the label of heretic. This tale attempts to visualize what might have driven such a man and where it would have taken him in the end. The actions of the story are really quite commonplace until one gets to the final Roman war against the Jews in Palestine. But even these events are seen only from a distance. The real crux of this tale is the seeking and the life-events which might have underlay the tale of Elisha and help explain why he did what he did. His is the tale of the child of a Hellenized father, wrested at his father's death from the larger, intellectual Greek world and shoe-horned into a realm of orthodoxy in keeping with the narrow prejudices of his deceased mother's brother. His Greek learning aborted, Elisha becomes an enthusiastic student of his people's traditions rising, in time, to membership in the revered Sanhedrin. But the Greek seeds (or something else) have been planted and in time take root, pushing out the superimposed shrubbery of orthodxy. And Elisha begins to doubt and question. Unable to reconcile his restless questioning to the blind teachings of orthodxy, he seeks wider knowledge, causing a rift with the community of the orthodox. Driven into exile in Antioch he begins a life of study and inquiry, trying always to use his reason to erect an edifice in which he can wholeheartedly believe. But events catch up with him even as his understanding increases. There is a very fine rendering here of that process by which we try to understand the underpinnings of the world in which we exist and one sees clearly the metaphysical problems and Elisha's burden in grappling with them. He does seem a bit simple at times and one can't help thinking that this, in some sense, is the author's own tale, writ into a fable about a first century Jew in the Roman world. But it's all very compelling and, at times, riveting, especially as it captures the hellenistic world and its thought. But it's a book of ideas, in the end, rather than people. Ideas which tear at all of us in the end. -- Stuart W. Mirsky

Set at the time shortly after the destruction of the second temple, this novel is based on a traditional tale from the Talmud. The tale describes how four sages journeyed into the realm of metaphysics and as a result one died, one became insane, one became an heretic, and only one (Akiba) was able to come through the experience. The main character, Elisha ben Abuyah, is in fact a historical figure, and has come down through history as an heretic rabbi, an apostate, a dualist who betrayed the Jews to the Romans after the rebellion in 132-135 C.E. (the "Aher" -- the one who took another point of view).

Elisha's faith, already shaken by the influence of Greek and Roman culture, looses his faith in God after witnessing the accidental death of a child. Like Job, Elisha challenges God -- "Wilt Thou harass a driven leaf?" The dictum of the sages "it is not in our power to explain either the happiness of the wicked nor the sufferings of the righteous," was not an adequate answer to calm his distress. In his attempt to find axioms and a succession of propositions on which the doctrines of the Tradition might rest, Elisha opens a Pandora box in his mind.

Although Elisha's despair is honest, his persistent reverence and reliance on intellect turns his life into tragedy. He becomes aware that neither reality outside man, or feeling within him, is altogether logical, there is always a residue of the irrational never to be resolved into lucidity. Man's mind is an inadequate isntrument to achieve certainty. For all truths rests ultimately on some act of faith, geometry on axioms, and sciences on the assumptions of the objective existence and ordeliness of the world nature.

Published for the first time in 1939, this novel remains forever important in its dealing of a fundamental philosophical issue: the limitations of reason and the power of faith in the search of Truth.

Milton Steinberg's As A Driven Leaf is the explosive, touching story of Elisha Ben Abuyah, the real-life Talmudic sage who experienced a crisis of faith in the face of political tyranny and terrible human suffering. A ground breaking historical novel, As A Driven Leaf offers an unparalleled view of the conflicts between Judaism and the pagan world, from the brilliant legal debates of the Sanhedrin to the bloody gladiatorial contests of the Roman arena. By effectively utilizing First Century characters, Steinberg is ably to vividly illuminate the pervasive tensions between Jews a world of gentiles. George Guidall's talented narration in this complete and unabridged audiobook edition does full justice to Milton Steinberg's superbly crafted story and brings the listener into a world of revolution, change, and conflict with the engaging intimacy of a true "theatre of the mind" experience.