A Code of Jewish Ethics – Love Your Neighbor as Yourself
A Code of Jewish Ethics Volume 2 Love Your Neighbor as Yourself
"Jewish thinkers don't talk all that much about love. All too often we leave that to Christian theologians. But in this excellent volume, Rabbi Joseph Telushkin puts the commandment to love at the center of Jewish theology and experience. This is a book that will change the way you think about–and practice–Judaism."
–Professor Ari L. Goldman, Columbia University, and author of The Search for God at Harvard
"Love your neighbor as yourself" is the best-known commandment in the Bible. Yet we rarely hear anyone talk about how to apply these words in daily life. In this landmark work, Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, one of the premier scholars and thinkers of our time, gives both Jews and non-Jews an extraordinary summation of what Jewish tradition teaches about putting these words into practice.
Writing with great clarity and simplicity as well as with deep wisdom, Telushkin covers topics such as love and kindness, hospitality, visiting the sick, comforting mourners, charity, relations between Jews and non-Jews, compassion for animals, tolerance, self-defense, and end-of-life issues. This second volume of the first major code of Jewish ethics written in the English language is breathtaking in its scope and will undoubtedly influence readers for generations to come. It offers hundreds of practical examples from the Torah, the Talmud, the Midrash, and both ancient and modern rabbinic commentaries–as well as contemporary anecdotes–all teaching us how to care for one another each and every day.
A Code of Jewish Ethics, Volume 2: Love Your Neighbor as Yourself is a consummate work of scholarship. Like its acclaimed predecessor, which received the National Jewish Book Award, it is rich with ideas to contemplate and discuss, while being primarily a book to live by. Nothing could be more important in these strife-torn times than learning how to love our neighbors as ourselves. The message of this book is as vital and timely now as it has been since time immemorial.
User Ratings and Reviews
5 Stars one of Telushkin's best
… for two reasons.
First, this book (to a much greater extent than some of Telushkin's earlier works) includes perspectives that differ from his own. For example, on vegetarianism, Telushkin goes back and forth between Maimonides' view (suggesting that meat is mandatory on holy days), later views critiquing Maimonides (including those of Rav Kook, who was not a vegetarian himself, but suggested that meat consumption will end in the Messianic era, and the views of some of his disciples who became vegetarians), and his own intermediate view.
Second, rather than trying to cover every concievable ethics issue, Telushkin covers a few issues in great detail. For example, he spends about 100 pages on charity alone, including 10 on issues relating to beggars.
3 Stars Good insight into Jewish humour for the Goyim
I learned quite a bit from this volume, and it most certainly is not merely a "joke book". It's a scholarly explanation of Jewish humour from a very quailified Rabbi. All in all, it was enjoyable. Not a "keeper" for me, but it did explain the psychology behind a lot of things that have been obscure or even mystifying to me.
5 Stars Erudite and Accessible
Integrates biblical references and moral values to very good effect. In fact, the text is very fluent and easy to read with interesting case studies derived from the present time to antiquity. Really makes you think hard and to challenge yourself about new approaches to commonsense thought.
5 Stars Ethics and Wisdom Traditions
Rabbi Joseph Telushkin is a rigorous and thoughtful scholar whose perspective on ethics is grounded in the real world. Rabbi Telushkin's knowledge and mastery of Jewish texts is extraordinary, and it is matched by his clear writing style. As a student and teacher of ethics, I recommend Telushkin's works to persons interested in ethics, Judaism, and/or ways that we might live better in the world today. Learn and enjoy at the same time– and be challenged to live a better life too. Respectfully, Simon Shimshon Rubin, Professor of Clinical Psychology, University of Haifa, Israel.
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