Benjamin D. Sommer argues that the modern reading of the legal portions of the Torah calls for a “participatory theory of revelation” and a “participatory theology” to stand as the basis for explaining the ongoing dialogue between G-d and Israel (2). The revelation of G-d's will in the Torah coupled with Israel's interpretation and response to G-d's will is the foundation for the relationship established between them from antiquity, through the present, and on into the future. Such a view of revelation is inherently dialogical insofar as it places a high premium on human agency in giving witness to the grandeur (and sanctity!) of G-d, who accomplishes the task of revelation through the free will of human beings subject to divine authority. Sommer gives expression to the classic rabbinic stance that the human being serves as a partner with G-d in the task of completing and sanctifying creation. He also allows for the recognition that Judaism is a tradition, as it permits the incorporation of new insights and perspectives as Jews engage G-d in dialogue over the meaning and application of the Torah. He rejects “stenographic” views of revelation that understand G-d to have dictated the Torah to Moses at Sinai in favor of a view of Judaism as a human response to G-d's frequently nonverbal revelation. He especially emphasizes the work of Franz Rosenzweig and Abraham Joshua Heschel as expounders of the participatory nature of revelation and theology.
Sommer lays out his argument in six well-informed and cogent chapters. The first, “Artifact or Scripture?,” notes that modern historical-critical scholarship often separates the Bible from Judaism. Where some read the Bible as a historical artifact that creates a firewall between contemporary Jewish (and Christian) faith and practice and historical truths recognized in Scripture, Sommer calls for a synthesis of these two approaches that recognizes the Bible as the basis for Jewish interpretation. Critical method points to the tradition of Judaism that grew out of interpretation of the biblical text. Although Sommer never states it, his argument articulates the theological viewpoint of the Conservative Jewish movement. Whereas Orthodox and Reform Judaism maintain that revelation took place at Sinai (which they understand very differently), Conservative Judaism argues that Israel constructs Judaism throughout history based on its reading and implementation of the tradition. Consequently, revelation is an ongoing reality.
Sommer's chapter, “What Happened at Sinai?,” notes the jumbled and various approaches to divine revelation inherent in E, P, J, and D, leaving interpreters to ponder to what extent the Torah represents divine revelation or human understanding of divine revelation. Although Sommer is correct to emphasize the many voices in the Torah, he does not ask how they might blend together in the final redaction of the text. To what extent does P or any of the others subsume earlier voices to its own in order to produce a text that has an internal dynamic of change, correction, and innovation, that is, to what extent do later P or D texts represent an unfolding of E or J in the final redacted form of the Torah?
Chapter 3, “Command and Law in a Participatory Theology of Revelation,” argues that Moses was neither a stenographer nor an author of divine revelation; rather, he was a translator who conveyed divine self-disclosure to Israel. Israel's observance of law enables G-d to grant law the status of divine bidding just as Israel's intensive, ongoing study of law enables G-d to speak through it. Sommer's view correlates with his understanding of Heschel's belief that Jews are obligated to observe divine law as a means of engagement with G-d and Rosenzweig's position that each Jew should create her own sense of Halakhah. Sommer reaches this conclusion through his assessment of critical scholarship's ongoing engagement of divine revelation through E, P, J, and D. Although he portrays this view as an expression of traditional observance, here he again valorizes Conservative theology. Orthodox thinkers would hardly accept such a contention; all of the Oral Torah was revealed at Sinai, including that which is yet to be learned. But Sommer makes a major advance by showing that critical scholarship can be a vehicle to traditional Jewish observance.
In chapter 4, “Scripture as Tradition,” Sommer argues that there is no true Written Torah in Judaism; there is only Oral Torah. Rabbinic Judaism has always labored to blur the distinction between Written and Oral Torah in an effort to make the Oral Torah the true understanding of divine revelation. Critical scholarship backs up his claim, particularly in the Torah, insofar as the sources reconceive and rewrite their predecessors. Sommer accurately describes Jewish use of the Bible, but an issue emerges, viz., does not rabbinic Judaism treat the Bible in a manner analogous to that of Christianity (and even Islam), compromising the authority of the written text of the Bible by subsuming it to the understanding of later tradition? To what extent must Jews (and other traditions in their own contexts) learn to engage the Written Torah per se as a means for understanding the foundations for the dialogue between G-d and Israel? Shouldn't we understand the separation of meat and milk, for example, as based in interpretation, expansion, and application of the Torah's statements prohibiting boiling a kid in its mother's milk? By going back to the Bible, which Sommer endorses, do we not have the potential to understand that rabbinic interpretation itself might be reinterpreted, extended, and applied? Conservative Judaism's decision to ordain women rabbis was based in part on Deborah's role as a judge deciding points of Halakhah in Judges 4, which is indeed the traditional task of the rabbi. Orthodoxy would hardly accept such a move, but it is in fact experimenting with roles for women that are analogous—but not equivalent—to that of rabbi.
Chapter 5, “Event, Process, and Eternity,” asserts that the Oral Torah dispenses with the notion of a fixed, written canon, since it is a continually evolving tradition that transcends time. As both Heschel and Rosenzweig maintain, all Jews were present at Sinai, and so the divine voice at Sinai never ceases. The Bible, the Talmuds, Kabbalah, Hasidism, etc., stand together as a continuous stream in Jewish thought.
In chapter 6, “A Modern Jewish Approach to Scripture,” Sommer argues that Jews must reclaim the study of the Bible through modern critical scholarship as a means to establish the foundations of the Jewish tradition. But he does so by adopting a piecemeal approach much like that employed in rabbinic tradition, citing individual verses rather than whole books. He recognizes that the Bible is flawed, that in its present form it cannot stand as the sole basis for Judaism. But Jewish tradition has always addressed this issue by its continuous engagement with the biblical text. Sommer rejects the notion of a Jewish biblical theology, and argues instead that the Bible must be part of a larger Jewish theology. But here he misses an important point. Jewish biblical scholars who call for a Jewish biblical theology have never called for the Bible to stand as a singular basis for Judaism; instead, they have consistently called for placing the Bible in dialogue with subsequent Jewish tradition in a manner not unlike that proposed by Sommer. The issue posed by Jewish biblical theology is how does one understand the Jewish Bible? The talmudic rabbis and subsequent Jewish tradition did indeed understand that there is a Jewish canonical Bible, including the Torah, Prophets, and Writings. Insofar as the Jewish Bible itself posits such a three-part structure that articulates Israel's ideals, while explaining the disruption of those ideals through the Babylonian Exile, as well as the restoration of those ideals in the postexilic period, the canonical Jewish Bible has the potential to make a contribution to Jewish thought that has yet to be recognized.
