Each week I look at the Torah portion to see what I can learn what new insight I find. It's remarkable how a sentence or a phrase, even a word, will stand out one year that has been glossed over in other years. No matter how many times I've read a given passage, there's always the chance that I'll see something 1 never saw before. It's been there all along, of course. But each time I open the Torah, I read it with new eyes.

That, of course, is because I'm not the same person I was last year, and certainly not the same person I was ten or twenty years ago. The text hasn't changed; I have. That's the great benefit of reading the same rich text over and over again year after year. Every word really is pregnant with deeper and deeper meaning.

The more I read as my life experiences expand, the more I find in the text. Noticing variations, apparent insertions or deletions, and word changes causes the text to jump off the page.

When I add reading the rabbinic commentaries to the text, which add many lifetimes of insight and meaning, the experience becomes even richer. That is the great benefit and joy of access to the rabbinic tradition. What a rabbi living in one century missed, one living in another grasps. The experience of a rabbi living in a time of persecution finds particular meaning in a given text that a rabbi living in a time of prosperity and peace misses. One commentator brings his experience of serving at court (yes, there were rabbis who served at court in some European countries) to the text, while another who is a simple shoemaker brings a different experience and derives different insights.

One of the things that has happened over the past several years is the emergence of English translations to many of the commentators. While the Plaut Commentary in our Sanctuary is a wonderful resource, it really is only a brief, summary introduction to the treasure of rabbinic interpretation available to you.

Our library has many of these rabbinic commentary translations available to you if you're interested. One in particular is probably the best introduction to the commentators, and that is Nechamah Leibowitz's series. I studied with her in Jerusalem back in 1965-66, when I studied in Israel for a year.

So if you are at all serious about Bible study and want to get a deeper glimpse into the rabbinic commen­taries, I strongly recommend you check out her work. There are two centuries of insight into the text waiting for you in our Stillman-Lack Library. Take the time to check it out. You'll deepen and enrich your reading of Torah immeasurably. Not to mention your life.