Book review: Meaning in Mitzvot

To many moderns, Hebrew-speakers included, many of these traditional works (not to mention the full complement of commentaries that accompany them), are little more than a thick stew of obtuse, antiquated Hebrew essentially inaccessible to the layman.

Enter "Meaning in Mitzvot," by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir. Meir, research director of the Jerusalem-based Business Ethics Center, has addressed this need with a two-volume, English-language adaptation of the 19th century Kitzur Shulchan Aruch by Rabbi Shlomo Ganzfried, itself an abbreviated handbook that draws its name from Caro's classic, definitive work of Jewish law.

As does Jewish law itself, "Meaning in Mitzvot" takes us through many areas of Jewish life, including the holiday cycle, lifecycle events, and lifestyle issues such as kosher food, prayer, Shabbat laws, marital laws, Jewish business law and more.

Each section contains an overview of the issue at hand, several legal requirements for fulfilling the attendant mitzvot, and commentary and explanation for the mitzvah.

For example, the chapter dealing with honoring parents (Chapter 143) provides a technical overview of the mitzvah, the Biblical verses from which the mitzvah is derived, and the legal (halachic) requirements of the mitzvah (primary physical care of parents: helping them eat and dress if need be). It also discusses the difference between the requirement to "honor" parents, derived from the Ten Commandments, and the mitzvah to "revere" parents mentioned in the book of Leviticus.

The book then gives a three-page explanation of the deeper meaning of the mitzvah: a comparison of honoring parents and honoring God, the comparison between honoring parents and Shabbat, and the relationship between this mitzvah and the Torah's commandment to the Jewish people to build a tabernacle in the desert.

Preaching to the converted

But the book falls into the trap of much English-language Judaica: Meir seems to be preaching to the converted, to religious Jews already interested in the meaning of most "familiar" mitzvot, such as the example mentioned above. And for that crowd, the explanations are too basic to be interesting.

Worse, the book misses an important potential audience: non-observant people, especially in Israel, where mitzvot often coincide with cultural norms (circumcision, for instance).

But whereas this audience is unlikely to be moved by discussion of God, holiness or "religion," they would likely be interested in an analysis of the mitzvot in a modern context. For instance, in discussing the holiday of Chanukah (Chapter 139), Meir presents a historical overview, a summary of the technical requirements of lighting the menorah (candles must have a single wick, it is forbidden to light the menorah in one place and move it to another, the lights should be aligned in a straight line, and not arranged in a circle).

But here we have a post-biblical holiday, created by the rabbis to commemorate a military victory of a small band of Jews over the mighty Greek empire (not to mention the large number of "mityavnim," assimilationist Jews who favored shedding Jewish law and custom in favor of Greek norms and culture).

The similarities between the creation of Chanukah and the establishment of Israel Independence Day as a religious holiday by the religious Zionist establishment are striking, and bring up many questions: What authority to rabbis have to establish new holidays? Are there similar, more recent examples of modern holidays (there are)? And if so, why has the ultra-Orthodox (haredi) world rejected Yom Ha'atzmaut almost completely?

Furthermore, if rabbis have the authority to establish new holidays without violating the Torah's principle of "don't add" to the 613 mitzvot, why don't they also have the authority to cancel ancient rabbinic decrees, such as the second day of Jewish holidays observed outside of Israel, or the prohibition on blowing the shofar if the holiday of Rosh Hashana falls on Shabbat?

What about the sheep?

These questions are especially potent in light of one of the book's strong points: its discussion of several little known mitzvot, such as the commandment to redeem a first-born donkey (chapter 178), and the details of little-understood ones, such as the requirement to immerse new kitchen utensils in a mikveh (chapter 37).

As with the previous example, each receives a basic, technical introduction to the mitzvah ("A firstborn donkey must be redeemed with a sheep, which is given to a cohen. If this redemption is not performed, we must break the foal's neck"), and follows this description up with an explanation of the mitzvah and comments about its relevance to modern life:

The commandment to redeem the firstborn of a donkey hints that even among the impure and wicked, who seem to be ruled by their basest instincts and have no external signs of righteousness, there are those who are pure at heart and can be redeemed. The donkey has neither cloven hooves nor chews its cud (the two signs of a kosher animal) and hence has no signs of purity. But even the donkey has the potential to be redeemed in the eservice of holiness

But what about the majority of Jews in New York, Baltimore, London, Melbourne and even Tel Aviv who have never even seen a live donkey, let alone own one (and thus are outside the category of being required to perform this mitzvah)? There are plenty of mitzvot, such as giving charity or visiting the sick, that teach us to "elevate" our daily lives for a higher purpose. What does this mitzvah add to their lives? And what does the cohen do with the sheep?

But even with these flaws, Meaning in Mitzvot is addressed to the English-speaking yeshiva/seminary crowd, rather than a new-age Tel Aviv crowd that is often interested in studying traditional Jewish text but decidedly uninterested in incorporating traditional mitzvoth. For that crowd, it is an interesting read, backed up by a valuable wealth of footnotes

Yeshiva traditionalists will claim students of Jewish law would be better served by struggling to dissect the traditional texts, but for English-speakers looking for a better understanding of Jewish law, Meaning in Mitzvot is a fair place to begin.

2 volumes, Feldheim Publishing