Another recent second-hand bookshop "find" is
Derashot Uziel. This little book, published in Jerusalem in 1991, looks at first glance like a conventional commentary on Pirkei Avot but it is not. The first part of the book is a reprint of the Hebrew text of Avot together with the commentary of Rabbi Ovadyah of Bartenura (printed below the text of the mishnah rather than in the margin). There then follows a set of nine lectures, or
derashot, written in an elegantly simple Hebrew by the author,
Rabbi Ben-Zion Meir Chai Uziel. This gentleman was the first Sefardi Chief Rabbi of Israel and lived by the motto "Love truth and peace", something that his
derashot certainly reflect. I've just started reading them in reverse order, starting with "
Derech Yasharah" ("The Right Path," Avot 2:1) and so far I've not been at all disappointed.
