By Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin
BOCA RATON, Florida — Koren Publishers Jerusalem has just published an excellent single 2033 page volume of the entire Hebrew Bible, the Tanakh, with the beautiful classic Koren Hebrew font and a new, modern, readable translation of the Torah, Prophets, and Writings by the recently deceased Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, and other scholars.
Examples of new translations are: “When God began creating heaven and earth, the earth was void and desolate” Genesis 1:1. And “Do not crave your neighbor’s house” Exodus 20:14.
Examples of translations and notes: “Then the man named his wife Hava, for she would become the mother of all life” Genesis 3:20. Note: “The name Hava resonates with Hai (life).” “The man knew his wife Hava” Genesis 4:1. Note: “A euphemism for sexual relations.”
The volume contains a wealth of information. Among much else, there is the traditional markings for chapters and verses, a listing of weekly Torah and haftarah readings for Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Yemenite customs, Torah readings for special days, special Shabbos and festival readings, list of haphtarot for each of the three customs, frequent concise notes at the bottom of some pages to clarify the text, transliterated names instead of modern English versions (such as Moshe rather than Moses, Hava instead of Eve) so that readers, Jews and non-Jews, are brought closer to the original Hebrew, many new charts, diagrams, illustrations, and maps in full color that help clarify the text, Torah and Haftarah blessings, cantillation notes, textual variants in some Tanakh volumes, diagrams of the first and second temples, charts of the dates of various events, chart of King David’s descendants, listings of the scholars and what they translated and footnotes they provided, all on strong durable paper, with an index of thumb tabs that make it easy to find and see what one wants to see, and more. The standard hardcover version is $44.95.
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Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin is a retired brigadier general in the U.S. Army chaplain corps and the author of more than 50 books.