Adin Steinsaltz
Encyclopedia
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine as a "once-in-a-millennium scholar". He has devoted his life to making the Talmud
Talmud
The Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....
accessible to all Jews. Originally published in modern Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
, with a running commentary to facilitate learning, his Steinzaltz edition of the Talmud has also been translated into English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
and Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
.
Biography
Born in Jerusalem in 1937 to secular parents, Steinsaltz studied mathematicsMathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
, physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
, and chemistry
Chemistry
Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
at the Hebrew University
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem ; ; abbreviated HUJI) is Israel's second-oldest university, after the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The Hebrew University has three campuses in Jerusalem and one in Rehovot. The world's largest Jewish studies library is located on its Edmond J...
, in addition to rabbinical studies. Following graduation, he established several experimental schools after an unsuccessful attempt to start a neo-Hassidic community in the Negev desert, and, at the age of 23, became Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
’s youngest school principal.
In 1965, he founded the Israel Institute for Talmudic Publications and began his monumental work on the Talmud, including translation into Hebrew, English, Russian, and various other languages. The Steinsaltz editions of the Talmud include translation from the original Aramaic and a comprehensive commentary. Steinsaltz completed his Hebrew edition of the entire Babylonian Talmud in November 2010, at which time Koren Publishers Jerusalem
Koren Publishers Jerusalem
Koren Publishers Jerusalem is an Israeli publisher of Jewish religious texts. It was established in 1961 by Eliyahu Koren, with the aim of publishing the first Hebrew Bible designed, edited, printed, and bound by Jews in nearly 500 years...
became the publisher of all of his works, including the Talmud. While not without criticism (e.g. by Neusner
Jacob Neusner
Jacob Neusner is an American academic scholar of Judaism who lives in Rhinebeck, New York.-Biography:Born in Hartford, Connecticut, Neusner was educated at Harvard University, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America , the University of Oxford, and Columbia University.Neusner is often celebrated...
, 1998), the Steinsaltz edition is widely used throughout Israel, the United States and the world. Over 2 million volumes of the Steinsaltz Talmud have been distributed to date. The out of print Random House
Random House
Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...
publication of The Talmud: The Steinsaltz Edition
The Talmud: The Steinsaltz Edition
The Steinsaltz Edition is a translation of the Babylonian Talmud, that has a literal direct translation of the Talmud along with halacha summaries and commentaries by Torah Scholar Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz. The translation started in 1965 and was completed in late 2010...
is widely regarded as the most accurate and least redacted of any English language edition and is sought after on that basis by scholars and collectors. Controversial Talmud passages previously obscured, omitted entirely or confined to footnotes in English translations like the Soncino
Soncino Press
Soncino Press is a Jewish publishing company based in the United Kingdom that has published a variety of books of Jewish interest, most notably English translations and commentaries to the Talmud and Hebrew Bible...
Talmud, receive full exposition in the Steinsaltz Talmud. Random House
Random House
Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...
halted publication of the Steinsaltz Talmud after less than one-third of the English translation had been published.
The Steinsaltz editions of the Talmud have opened up the world of Talmud study to thousands of people outside the walls of the traditional yeshiva, including women, who traditionally were not taught Talmud. Regarding the access that his work provides, Rabbi Steinsaltz says:
- “I never thought that spreading ignorance has any advantage, except for those who are in a position of power and want to deprive others of their rights and spread ignorance in order to keep them underlings.”
Rabbi Steinsaltz's classic work of Kabbalah
Kabbalah
Kabbalah/Kabala is a discipline and school of thought concerned with the esoteric aspect of Rabbinic Judaism. It was systematized in 11th-13th century Hachmei Provence and Spain, and again after the Expulsion from Spain, in 16th century Ottoman Palestine...
, The Thirteen Petalled Rose, was first published in 1980 and now appears in eight languages. In all, Steinsaltz has authored some 60 books and hundreds of articles on subjects including Talmud, Jewish mysticism
Kabbalah
Kabbalah/Kabala is a discipline and school of thought concerned with the esoteric aspect of Rabbinic Judaism. It was systematized in 11th-13th century Hachmei Provence and Spain, and again after the Expulsion from Spain, in 16th century Ottoman Palestine...
, Jewish philosophy
Jewish philosophy
Jewish philosophy , includes all philosophy carried out by Jews, or, in relation to the religion of Judaism. Jewish philosophy, until modern Enlightenment and Emancipation, was pre-occupied with attempts to reconcile coherent new ideas into the tradition of Rabbinic Judaism; thus organizing...
, sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
, historical biography
Biography
A biography is a detailed description or account of someone's life. More than a list of basic facts , biography also portrays the subject's experience of those events...
, and philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
. Many of these works have been translated into English by his close personal friend, now deceased, Yehuda Hanegbi. All are published by Koren Publishers Jerusalem.
In the summer of 1989, a group of rabbis including Elazar Shach
Elazar Shach
Elazar Menachem Man Shach also spelt Eliezer Schach, was a leading Lithuanian-born and educated Haredi rabbi in Bnei Brak, Israel. He also served as one of three co-deans of the Ponevezh yeshiva in Bnei Brak along with Rabbis Shmuel Rozovsky and Dovid Povarsky...
, Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, Eliezer Waldenberg (the Tzitz Eliezer), Aharon Leib Shteinman, Chaim Kanievsky
Chaim Kanievsky
Shmaryahu Yosef Chaim Kanievsky, , is an Israeli rabbi and posek. Kanievsky is considered a leading authority in Haredi Jewish society.-Biography:...
, Michel Yehuda Lefkowitz
Michel Yehuda Lefkowitz
Michel Yehuda Lefkowitz was a respected Haredi Lithuanian Torah leader and rosh yeshiva in Bnei Brak, Israel, for over 70 years. He was a maggid shiur at Yeshivas Tiferes Tzion from 1940 to 2011 and rosh yeshiva of Yeshivas Ponovezh L’Tzeirim from 1954 to 2009, raising thousands of students...
, Chaim Kreiswirth
Chaim Kreiswirth
Rabbi Chaim Kreiswirth was an Orthodox rabbi who served as the longtime Chief Rabbi of Congregation Machzikei Hadass Antwerp, Belgium...
, and Chaim Pinchas Scheinberg
Chaim Pinchas Scheinberg
Chaim Pinchas Scheinberg is a Polish-born, American-raised Haredi rabbi and rosh yeshiva who, since 1965, makes his home in the Kiryat Mattersdorf neighborhood of Jerusalem, Israel. He is the rosh yeshiva of the Torah Ore yeshiva in Kiryat Mattersdorf and Yeshivas Derech Chaim in Brooklyn...
placed a ban on all of Steinsaltz's works.
Continuing his work as a teacher and spiritual mentor, Steinsaltz established a network of schools and educational institutions in Israel and the former Soviet Union. He has served as scholar in residence at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars , located in Washington, D.C., is a United States Presidential Memorial that was established as part of the Smithsonian Institution by an act of Congress in 1968...
in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. His honorary degrees include doctorates from Yeshiva University
Yeshiva University
Yeshiva University is a private university in New York City, with six campuses in New York and one in Israel. Founded in 1886, it is a research university ranked as 45th in the US among national universities by U.S. News & World Report in 2012...
, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Bar Ilan University, Brandeis University
Brandeis University
Brandeis University is an American private research university with a liberal arts focus. It is located in the southwestern corner of Waltham, Massachusetts, nine miles west of Boston. The University has an enrollment of approximately 3,200 undergraduate and 2,100 graduate students. In 2011, it...
, and Florida International University
Florida International University
Florida International University is an American public research university in metropolitan Miami, Florida, in the United States, with its main campus in University Park...
. Steinsaltz is also Rosh Yeshiva
Rosh yeshiva
Rosh yeshiva, , , is the title given to the dean of a Talmudical academy . It is made up of the Hebrew words rosh — meaning head, and yeshiva — a school of religious Jewish education...
of Yeshivat Hesder Tekoa.
Being a follower of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson
Menachem Mendel Schneerson
Menachem Mendel Schneerson , known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe or just the Rebbe among his followers, was a prominent Hasidic rabbi who was the seventh and last Rebbe of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. He was fifth in a direct paternal line to the third Chabad-Lubavitch Rebbe, Menachem Mendel...
of Chabad-Lubavitch
Chabad-Lubavitch
Chabad-Lubavitch is a Chasidic movement in Orthodox Judaism. One of the world's larger and best-known Chasidic movements, its official headquarters is in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York...
, he went to help Jews in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
assisting Chabad's shluchim
Shaliach (Chabad)
A Chabad shliach is a Chabad member sent out to promulgate Judaism and Chasidut around the world.Chabad shluchim as of 2010 number about 4,500 worldwide, and can be found in many of even the most remote worldly locales.-Origins:...
network. Deeply involved in the future of the Jews in the former Soviet Union, Steinsaltz serves as the region's Duchovny Ravin, a historic Russian title which indicates that he is the spiritual mentor of Russian Jewry. In this capacity, Steinsaltz travelled to Russia and the Republics once each month from his home in Jerusalem. During his time in the former Soviet Union he founded the Jewish University, both in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
and Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
. The Jewish University is the first degree-granting institution of Jewish studies in the former Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
.
Steinsaltz is sceptical about interfaith work. During a visit of a delegation of Roman Catholic cardinals
Cardinal (Catholicism)
A cardinal is a senior ecclesiastical official, usually an ordained bishop, and ecclesiastical prince of the Catholic Church. They are collectively known as the College of Cardinals, which as a body elects a new pope. The duties of the cardinals include attending the meetings of the College and...
in Manhattan in January 2004, he said that “a meeting like this doesn't signify in itself a breakthrough”, and called for “a theological dialogue that asks the tough questions, such as whether Catholicism allows for Jews to enter eternal paradise.”
Steinsaltz and his wife live in Jerusalem, and have three children and more than ten grandchildren. His son, Rabbi Menachem Even-Israel, is the Director of Educational Programs at the Steinsaltz Center in the Nachlaot neighborhood of Jerusalem.
Head of the new Sanhedrin
Rabbi Steinsaltz accepted the position as Nasi (President) of the 2004 attempt to revive the Sanhedrin2004 attempt to revive the Sanhedrin
The 2004 attempt to re-establish the Sanhedrin was an attempt to set up a revived national rabbinical court of Jewish law in Israel which began in October 2004...
. In 2008 he resigned from this position due to differences of opinion.
As a speaker
Steinsaltz is a popular UniversityUniversity
A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...
and radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
commentator. He has been invited to speak at the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
in 1979. In Jerusalem, he gives evening seminars, which according to Newsweek usually last till 2 in the morning, and have attracted prominent politicians as the former Prime Minister
Prime minister
A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime...
Levi Eshkol
Levi Eshkol
' served as the third Prime Minister of Israel from 1963 until his death from a heart attack in 1969. He was the first Israeli Prime Minister to die in office.-Biography:...
and former Finance Minister
Finance minister
The finance minister is a cabinet position in a government.A minister of finance has many different jobs in a government. He or she helps form the government budget, stimulate the economy, and control finances...
Pinhas Sapir.
Awards and critical reception
Rabbi Steinsaltz has received many awards and prizes, among them the Israel PrizeIsrael Prize
The Israel Prize is an award handed out by the State of Israel and is largely regarded as the state's highest honor. It is presented annually, on Israeli Independence Day, in a state ceremony in Jerusalem, in the presence of the President, the Prime Minister, the Knesset chairperson, and the...
for Jewish studies in 1988.
However not all reception of Steinsaltz' studies have been wholly positive. In the relatively calm academic world Jacob Neusner
Jacob Neusner
Jacob Neusner is an American academic scholar of Judaism who lives in Rhinebeck, New York.-Biography:Born in Hartford, Connecticut, Neusner was educated at Harvard University, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America , the University of Oxford, and Columbia University.Neusner is often celebrated...
's combatively titled How Adin Steinsaltz Misrepresents the Talmud. Four False Propositions from his "Reference Guide." (1998) displays strong disagreement.
See also
- List of Israel Prize recipients
- Modern attempts to revive the SanhedrinModern attempts to revive the SanhedrinModern attempts to revive the Sanhedrin are the efforts from 1538 CE until the present day to renew the Sanhedrin which was dissolved in 358 CE by the edict of the Byzantine emperor. The latest effort was in 2004 when a group of seventy one rabbis claiming to represent varied communities in Israel...
External links
- Steinsaltz.org - The website of The Aleph Society and Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
- Steinsaltz's lecture in winter 2005 at Florida International UniversityFlorida International UniversityFlorida International University is an American public research university in metropolitan Miami, Florida, in the United States, with its main campus in University Park...
- Rabbi Steinsaltz talks about the Torah to BBCBBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
(sound file) - Some articles written by Rabbi Adin Even-Yisrael Steinsaltz
- korenpub.com - The website of Koren Publishers Jerusalem
- hashefa.co.il -Rabbi Steinsaltz (even-Israel) center in Israel