The Spirit of the Ten Commandments: Shattering the Myth of Rabbinic Legalism (review)

Volume 10. No.2 Winter 1992 151 that is absent then we look more closely for the other two which themselves are just more subtle kinds of motion. Hence cardiac activity is not a unique indicator of the presence of life, but simply a form of movement indicative of life. Therefore its temporary removal is no more significant than the temporary removal of a kidney (also required for life), and Jewish surgeons and wives can both breathe easy. Is this the last word on the subject? Possibly not. In science even the most convincing theories can be overturned by new insights and new experiments . So too inhalakha. If new and unexpected precedents can be found, or well-known sources looked at in a fresh light, old rulings can be overturned. This is especially the case in matters where a solid consensus has yet to be reached. This work examines many such areas and shows the type of logic that is required to investigate them. / This is not a book for the casual reader. Yet anyone with a modicum of background and an interest in the interaction between Jewish teaching and the modern world can nevertheless read and understand it. And then reread and understand it more fully (as I found when writing this review). Edward Simon Department of Biological Sciences Purdue University The Spirit of the Ten Commandments: Shattering the Myth of Rabbinic Legalism, by Roger Brooks. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1990. 199 pp. $29.95. The reality of the Jewish law for Jews as opposed to the perception of the Jewish law by Christians is at the heart of Christian misrepresentations of Judaism. Recent scholarly attempts at challenging these misperceptions are too numerous to mention. Roger Brooks stands in an ever-increasing line of scholars who are seeking to display the vitality of rabbinic texts and shatter the myth of Jewish legalism. Using the Ten Commandments as his test case, Brooks investigates the rabbis' interpretation of biblical law: "... did the rabbis construct a system that attempted only to spell out the details and the letter of the biblical law, merely a literalistic and fundamentalistic legal review? Or, did rabbinic literature seek to move beyond legalism to determine the law's underlying principles and to construct a deeper hermeneutic, which we might call the spirit of the law?" (p. x). Such are the questions that drive the thesis of this book. Brooks, quite rightly, argues that Judaism in the rabbinic era is not a sterile, arid religion preoccupied alone with the details of biblical texts and 152 SHOFAR law. Jewish law is a vehicle for holiness, and the study of the law opens opportunities to sanctify the profane, to vindicate the power of God (pp. 18-19). Indeed, he argues that Jewish law itself is an intellectual process to be learned and through which a set of values and principles is established in the community (p. 20). Behind the Jewish law there is mutuality and complementarity between God's decrees and human intellect. For the rabbis, the study of the law can never be reduced to mere fundamentalism. Human thought and disciplined observation of the law are both necessary ingredients in the Jewish legal process (p. 21). The relative balance between these may vary, yet the dialectic is not confined to the issue of Jewish legalism. By the very nature of the topic, it is also a study of rabbinic hermeneutics. Brooks clearly recognizes that to study the question of rabbinic legalism is also to study the issue of biblical interpretation in Judaism of the dual Torah. Hence, this book will also be of interest to those who are concerned with larger issues of intertextuality, hermeneutics, and the development of Jewish tradition in the Greco-Roman world. This book should be read by Jewish students, but perhaps more important it should be read by those who only know Judaism from afar. The western Christian proclivity to view Judaism as a religion of arid legalism runs deep in our culture, and this volume goes to great lengths to debunk that fallacy. This is a good book, well argued and sensitive to issues of contemporary concern. Significant sections of rabbinic textual...