The Spirit of the Ten Commandments: Shattering the Myth of Rabbinic Legalism (English and Hebrew Edition)

Beginning with the New Testament depiction of the Pharisees, Judaism has long been cast as a strict legalistic tradition. In this groundbreaking work - a brilliant investigation into formative Jewish attitudes toward biblical law - Roger Brooks demonstrates that Jewish law is the purveyor of deep spirituality as well as ethics. Dispelling centuries of misconception, Brooks reveals how rabbinic literature sought to move beyond legalism to determine the law's underlying principles and to construct a deeper hermeneutic, which might be called the spirit of the law.