Modern Judaism

Modern Judaism 21.1 (2001) 67-77

A Vindication of Judaism:
The Polemics of the Hertz Pentateuch:
A Review Essay

David Ellenson

Harvey Meirovich, A Vindication of Judaism: The Polemics of the Hertz Pentateuch (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1998), 304 pages.

Joseph Hertz, the first rabbinical graduate of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (1894), enjoyed a distinguished career as a pulpit rabbi in both the United States and South Africa. In 1913, he was elected Chief Rabbi of the British Empire, a position he occupied until his death in 1946. Between the years 1929 and 1936, Hertz edited and authored, with the help of a number of British colleagues, the first exclusively Jewish English-language commentary on the Pentateuch. This work ultimately found its way into the pews of most Jewish congregations in English-speaking lands and, throughout the twentieth century, remained the most influential Jewish commentary upon the Bible in both Great Britain and the United States. Indeed, the Hertz Pentateuch became the Jewish lens for viewing the biblical heritage of the Israel people in the English-language world. Countless numbers of Jews were schooled through its pages, and the impact of Hertz upon how English-speaking Jews understand the Bible has, unquestionably, been immense.

In light of all this, a scholarly analysis of the work and its author has long been an academic desideratum. However, the task of filling in this lacuna in modern Jewish scholarship is a considerable one. After all, such analysis requires an author well versed in classical Jewish sources such as the Bible, midrash, and medieval Jewish biblical commentaries, as well as one knowledgeable in a number of other areas—biblical criticism, modern Jewish religious history, modern Jewish-Christian religious polemics, and modern European and American intellectual history. Fortunately, Harvey Meirovich, Dean of the Rabbinical School at Machon Schechter of the Israeli Masorti Movement, is such a scholar. Ordained a rabbi by the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, Meirovich also earned a doctorate in Jewish History at JTSA under the guidance of Ismar Schorsch. In A Vindication of Judaism, Meirovich provides an insightful account and full analysis of the [End Page 67] Hertz Pentateuch, the man who wrote it, the context that shaped it, and its content.

In “Intellectual Roots, Theological Objectives,” the opening chapter of A Vindication of Judaism, Meirovich indicates how a comprehensive portrait of the Hertz Pentateuch has to be drawn against the larger intellectual matrix of modern Jewish history. The Bible has, of course, served throughout history as the foundational document of Judaism. However, within the precincts of premodern Judaism, the Talmud, and related genres of rabbinical literature were for all practical purposes accorded primacy over the Bible. After all, it was Martin Luther and his brand of Protestant Christianity that had advanced the doctrine of sola scriptura. For Jews, the Bible itself was to be interpreted and understood through the prisms provided by rabbinical writings and understandings. Explications of the biblical texts determined the meaning of Jewish law.

With the advent of the modern West, this situation was altered and the Bible came to occupy a different role in Jewish life. Reasons for this were several. Chief among them was the seminal role that the Bible has played in forging the religious and cultural parameters of the larger Western world throughout time. By focussing on the Bible Jews could identify with their Christian neighbors. In addition to this external factor, internal Jewish developments also led to the novel position the Bible now played in Jewish life. As Jewish literacy itself began to decline, and as a traditional way of life increasingly lost its hold on large numbers of Jews, the Talmud and its attendant literatures came to be either ignored or deemed irrelevant by these same Jews. Nevertheless, most of these Jews, while anxious to participate in the cultural life of the Occident, had no desire to abandon their identity as Jews. The overwhelming majority did not seek to discard their commitment to Judaism. Instead, their integration into European society required...