Best chumash for adult study?

trixx

Sun, Feb 25 2018, 2:00 pm

Stone - good for English of rashi and pasuk, I don't find the other commentary to be amazing (I don't even use it for that)

Gutnick - Amazing commentary and insights, literal translation of rashi and posuk not the best (posuk is a non literal translation that incorporates rashi into it)

Kehos chumash - beautifully redone (with the kiyor by Marc lumer on the cover) I would probably go with this. On their website you can download sample pdf

imasoftov

Sun, Feb 25 2018, 6:26 pm

I'd really recommend spending the time needed to learn to read the meforshim in Hebrew. Your inheritance is being withheld from you, and I don't know if it was done by the education you didn't receive attending a yeshiva for girls, or that you didn't receive at a secular school, but either way, you can reclaim it.

In Vayikra Rabba 9:3, Rabbi Yanni meats someone who looks like a scholar by the way he's dressed and invites him to his home, but discovers he knows neither Gemara, Aggada, Mishna or Tanach, and can't even lead a mezuman. So Rabbi Yannai says he will recite the words of the mezuman to him so he can repeat them back, but instead of whatever they said back then (it hadn't been standardized, or we'd all say the same thing today) he said "Repeat these words: 'A dog has eaten of Yannai's bread.' "

The man replied, "You have my inheritance, which you are withholding from me!"

When asked to explain what he meant, he said "Once I passed by a school, and heard the children saying, תּוֹרָה צִוָּה לָנוּ משֶׁה מוֹרָשָׁה קְהִלַּת יַעֲקֹב, Moshe gave us the Torah, the inheritance of the congregation of Yaakov (the pasuk we teach children as soon as they can talk), and it does not say the inheritance of the congregation of Yannai, but the congregation of Yaakov.

And here's a big secret, you didn't hear it from me: knowing how to read the sources for yourself keeps someone (that includes me) from misrepresenting what they say to you.

seeker

Sun, Feb 25 2018, 8:18 pm

I know how to read sources inside but I still rely heavily on Artscroll et al. because the original requires much more focus and time which I just don't have very often. Rather than stealing my inheritance, these tools are delivering it to me when I don't have the wherewithal to go dig it up myself.

amother

Turquoise

Mon, Feb 26 2018, 12:42 am

The תורת חיים set has all the meforshim found in the מקראות גדולות but the layout is much clearer. It also uses standard, not Rashi, script. It's very user-friendly, and if you have basic skills you can learn in the original rather than having the material pre-digested.

PinkFridge

Mon, Feb 26 2018, 11:21 am

I see both sides.
I think that the most important thing is that we get necessary practical knowledge and that also includes the non-halachic knowledge that motivates and inspires.
Interestingly, Rabbi Reisman, using Devorah as a springboard, has recently, and more than once IIRC suggested that women use some free time to do serious learning, going to the sources, expanding horizons.

imasoftov

Tue, Feb 27 2018, 7:00 am

Turquoise amother wrote:

I agree. We didn't get one because we already had most of the same material in the individual Mossad Harav Kook editions of meforshim when it came out, but that post I wrote recently about a Ramban using those editions could have also been made using a single volume of תורת חיים