A Year with the Sages: Wisdom on the Weekly Torah Portion

by Reuven Hammer

A Year with the Sages uniquely relates the Sages’ understanding of each Torah portion to everyday life. The importance of these teachings cannot be overstated. The Sages, who lived during the period from the fifth century BCE to the fifth century CE, considered themselves to have inherited the oral teachings God transmitted to Moses, along with the mandate to interpret them to each subsequent generation. Just as the Torah and the entire Hebrew Bible are the foundations of Judaism, the Sages’ teachings form the structures of Jewish belief and practice built on that foundation. Many of these teachings revolve around core concepts such as God’s justice, God’s love, Torah, Israel, humility, honesty, loving-kindness, reverence, prayer, and repentance.

You are invited to spend a year with the inspiring ideas of the Sages through their reflections on the fifty-four weekly Torah portions and the eleven Jewish holidays. Quoting from the week’s Torah portion, Rabbi Reuven Hammer presents a Torah commentary, selections from the Sages that chronicle their process of interpreting the text, a commentary that elucidates these concepts and their consequences, and a personal reflection that illumines the Sages’ enduring wisdom for our era.
 

Genres: Judaism

372 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 1, 2019

Reviews

[Robert D. Cornwall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Christians (at least some Christians) read Scripture in conversation with earlier theologians and saints, we call this Tradition. Tradition helps bridge the gap between the ancient sacred text and the contemporary world. We're not alone in this, as other faith traditions also read the sacred text in conversation with sages and other interpreters. As a Christian, I tend to read the Hebrew Bible (the Christian Old Testament) in light of these Christian interpreters and with Jesus as the prism through which to read the text. Jews read the same text as I do, but with a different set of conversation partners -- the Sages of the past.

Rabbi Reuven Hammer's "A Year with the Sages" offers commentary on the weekly Torah Portions, along with reflections of readings set out for the Jewish Holy Days (these tend not to come from Torah but from other portions of the Hebrew Bible). These conversation partners that Hammer engages are the founders of Rabbinic Judaism. They are the men (no women were counted among the Sages) who provided foundation form modern Judaism. Some of the names, such as Hillel, Shammai, and Akiva are relatively well known. Others may not be, but these are the interpreters who helped guide Judaism as it moved from a focus on the Temple to a focus on Torah. Important for Christian to understand, the Rabbinic tradition is the heir of the Pharisaic tradition.

This book focuses on the five books of the Torah, with commentary on select readings. Each reflection begins with an excerpt from the Hebrew text under consideration, followed by a brief exposition of the text by Rabbi Hammer. This is followed by sayings from the Sages, accompanied by Hammer's interpretation of the sayings, setting them in context. Finally, there is a personal reflection on Rabbi Hammer's part, sharing how the text, its interpretation by the Sages, engages with his own life experience. Regarding the sayings from the Sages, he notes that he has attempted to choose portions "that both illuminate the Sages' thinking and are particularly relevant to our lives for today.

In a word that might be well heard by Christians, regarding the value of Tradition, Hammer writes of the Sages, that the "importance of their teachings cannot be overestimated." He writes further: "one cannot even begin to understand Judaism without knowledge of their work. Just as the Torah and the entire Hebrew Bible are the foundations of Judaism, the Sages' teachings are the structures of Jewish belief and practice that have been erected upon that foundation. The one is incomplete without the other" (p. xvii).

One can read this as a lectionary commentary designed to be used by one who preachers, or in congregational study. Its value to Jewish readers is self-evident. It helps connect the different elements of Jewish tradition and faith for the contemporary world. We engage with people like Hillel and Akiva, who make clear that love of neighbor, for instance, stands at the heart of the Jewish faith. Hammer addresses important issues ancient and modern, which is helpful both inside and outside a Jewish context.

As a Christian minister, who is called to preach and teach from the text of Scripture, including the Hebrew Bible, I think this can be of great use. it will, if nothing else, help us interpret the text in ways that are faithful to its origins and in respect for our Jewish friends and neighbors who may read it differently.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the fascinating things about Torah study is that there is always something new to learn. Sometimes these ideas can be found by mining the writings of the sages (the ancient rabbis) and other times through reading the thoughts of contemporary spiritual leaders. Both of these can be found in Rabbi Reuven Hammer’s “A Year with the Sages: Wisdom on the Weekly Torah Portion” (The Jewish Publication Society). In his introduction, Hammer, who died earlier this year, noted that he welcomed the invitation to write this work because it gave him “yet another opportunity to delve into the writing of the Sages, to probe ways in which they chose to interpret Torah, and to demonstrate how their thinking is still relevant to our contemporary life as Jews.” He considers not only the weekly Torah portions, but those read on Jewish holidays.
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