Title: The Ethics of Deuteronomy
By Rabbi Dr. Abba Engelberg
Kodesh Press
Paperback, 415 pages
The Written Torah plays many roles within our tradition. Its verses record history, law and tradition; its text serves as the battlefield for philosophical and linguistic interpretation, and its words stand as inspiration to halachic debate and application. Great commentaries will often choose one mode or perspective, like literary or philosophical, as their entry point for interpretation and to draw meaning. Such specialization, however, is not the nature of Rabbi Dr. Abba Engleberg’s The Ethics of Deuteronomy. The longtime professor at Jerusalem College for Technology is far more ambitious and his diverse interests are on full display in this wide-ranging and well-researched work. His collection of essays – in the fashion of the greatest of commentaries – tackles a broad array of topics and issues in halacha, hashkafa and classical biblical interpretation as it attempts to find meaning from the text in our contemporary world.
Most of Rabbi Engleberg’s essays begin with a detailed summary of a major issue in the parsha and then extrapolate from those summaries to more contemporaneous matters. His essay on Ki Teitzeh begins with an overview of the legal sections of Devarim, then expands to a broader discussion of the tzaar baalei chaim and the associated laws in the Torah that may serve as the source for the Jewish sensitivity to animals. In addition to the interpretations from commentaries such as the Rambam and Sefer HaChinuch as background to the prohibitions, he adds an important coda that deals with the modern halachic-ethical questions such as hunting and medical experimentation.
The chapter entitled “The Dietary Laws” on parshat Re’eh gives the reader a sound and detailed summary of the sundry theories proposed by an impressive array of classical interpretations on the reasons for the laws of kashrut. Added to this discussion is an expansive appendix that attempts to encapsulate “Jewish Dietary History.” There, Rabbi Engleberg tracks restrictions on diet from Adam to Noah and the Midrashic additions to these restrictions, as well as a deep dive into vegetarianism as a Jewish value that follows this issue from the Rabbinic period all the way through Rav Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook.
Readers may find Rabbi Engleberg’s expansive appendices to be the most engaging sections of his work. The book of Deuteronomy, Moshe’s last earthly expression, gestures more than any other book in the Torah to the mercurial future of the Jewish people. In these appendices, readers will find historical summaries of the Second Temple period that merge Talmudic and Midrashic tales with contemporary historical work. So too, Rabbi Engleberg explores the cryptic statements in Tanach and Rabbinic literature that surround the coming of Mashiach, the war of Gog and Magog, and the definition of the World to Come.
The Ethics of Deuteronomy is an eclectic commentary on an eclectic book. Lovers of halacha, hashkafa, and biblical interpretation will find nuggets to digest in this very readable work. Rabbi Engleberg’s style is more colloquial than academic. The plethora of sources, some highly esoteric and mystical, are organized well and explicated clearly and concisely. The work represents another valuable addition to contemporary Torah study and an enriching commentary for both the scholar and novice alike.