Your lay leadership and I are even more enthusiastic about the new Chumash, known as Etz Hayim, which means tree of life. The differences between it and the Hertz Chumash, which has become a ubiquitous presence in Conservative congregations since its original publication in the 1930s, are like night and day. The significance of the difference goes far beyond the new translation--a clear, easily understandable translation that is worlds away from Hertzs anti­quated thee and thou translation (which actually is the 1917 translation by the Jewish Publica­tion Society). If this new, state-of-the-art Bible translation--which makes the biblical text infinitely more understandable and accessible--were the only innovation, that alone might make Etz Hayim a valuable investment. But theres so much more than that.
By the way, I dont want to appear to denigrate the Hertz Chumash too much. The Hertz Chumash served the Conservative movement well for many decades, and of course many of us have a sentimental attachment to it, because so many generations of Conservative Jews grew up with it. But Rabbi Hertz--the Lithuania-born, American-educated, Chief Rabbi of the British Empire--was fighting his own polemical battles from the pages of his Chumash, and so much of his commentary seems so dated--not only because of all that has happened in biblical scholar­ship in the past seventy years, but especially because of all that has happened in the world since Hertz first published his Chumash.
Etz Hayim boasts the editorial contributions of some of the most respected and creative fig­ures in the world of biblical scholarship and in the Conservative Movement--including the late Rabbi Chaim Potok and, yibbadlu lchayim, Rabbis Harold Kushner, Jules Harlow, and Elliot Dorff.
Etz Hayim contains two commentaries--p[bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse], explicating the literal meaning of the biblical text, and drash, explicating its homiletical meanings--revealing in tandem the multi-leveled meaning of the biblical text. There also is a commentary that explains halakhah lmaasei--matters of practical halakhah, Jewish law, which emanate from the Torah, and which are presented to us from the perspective of Conservative Judaism.
The beautifully laid-out volume includes colorful maps of the land of the Bible and the Ancient Near East, glossaries, illustrations, and over three dozen stimulating and challenging essays from the pens of some of the most creative scholars and rabbis today.
Etz Hayim is described by Rabbi Harold Kushner, in his introductory essay, as a quite self-consciously post-Holocaust commentary, and it draws both from classical and contemporary sources to confront the significant theological challenges presented by the Shoah and dealt with--millennia before this past century--by the biblical narrative itself.
