Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
A Tendentious Talmudic Mind
Rabbi
Adin
Steinsaltz
is
quite
the
accomplished personality. The author of over 60
books, Rabbi Steinsaltz has also translated the entire
Talmud into Hebrew, a project he started in 1965 at
the age of 28 and took 45 years to complete. To date,
over two million copies of the Steinsaltz Talmud –
in Hebrew, English, French, and Russian – have
been sold. No wonder Time magazine once dubbed
him a “once-in-a-millennium scholar.”
Last month, Rabbi Steinsaltz’s career hit another high as Koren
Publishers Jerusalem released the first volume of its English translation of the
Steinsaltz Talmud. From 1989-1999, Random House published four masechtot
of the Steinsaltz Talmud in English, but then stopped. Koren Publishers has
now stepped into the breach.
The new English edition features color illustrations, vowelized and
punctuated Gemara pages, plus Koren’s signature aesthetic touch. According
to Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, the project’s editor-in-chief, the entire set of 41
volumes is scheduled to be published within the next four years. A Steinsaltz
Talmud iPad app will also be available soon.
The Jewish Press recently spoke with Rabbi Steinsaltz about the new
Gemara translation, his background, and various controversies that have
surrounded him and his work.
The Jewish Press: Why should someone buy the Steinsaltz Talmud
instead of ArtScroll’s immensely popular Shas?
Rabbi Steinsaltz: Look, it’s not the same. I would put it in the
following way: When you learn from my Gemara, I hope that you get a kick to
learn further, and that you don’t feel you know everything and that all the
problems are answered.
Does the ArtScroll Shas not do that as well?
I think ArtScroll gives too much in a way. Everything is in there. I’m
trying to have it in a way that you study and want more.
Basically I want, not just that you will look at the Gemara, but that
you will get involved in it. You cannot learn Gemara completely passively.
You have to be a participant.
There are two parts to what Hillel HaZaken said about kol haTorah
kulah. One part is always quoted – “What you don’t want done to you, don’t
do to others.” But the other part – “And all the rest go and learn” – is no less
important.
I hope to have people who will learn and say, “We want to know
more, we have more questions.”
You started translating Shas into Hebrew at the age of 28. What led
you to embark on this enormous project and what gave you the confidence
that you’d be able to do it?
For the first part of the question, I will just tell you it’s what makes
people want to climb Mount Everest – the mountain is there, the challenge is
there, and the need is there. So you do it.
[In terms of being able to translate Shas], I thought at the time, and
other people thought as well, that I was able to do it. Hopefully I didn’t
disappoint.
Were you scared of embarking on such a major project at such a
young age?
Well, I’m not a scared person – not of bullets and not of ideas.
But why assume such a major undertaking?
Because the Talmud is the central pillar of Judaism, and if the central
pillar is not at hand for most people, they miss something very important. The
Talmud was, in so many ways, a closed book for many people – so I tried to
open it.
In the original editions of the Steinsaltz Talmud, you changed the
traditional look – the tzuras hadaf – of the pages, for which you were
heavily criticized. For the new edition of the Hebrew and English Steinsaltz
Talmud, however, you restored the old look. Why did you originally change
it and why did you restore it?
Look, in the beginning, it just couldn’t be done. All the additional
material couldn’t be put on the old pages. I tried 20-odd formats, and found
out that if I used the traditional page, it would be at least two and a half times
as big, which wouldn’t be usable. So the question is: What do you do –
duplicate the page as ArtScroll did or cut it?
What I originally did in my Hebrew Gemaras was cut it. About 150
years ago in Poland, an edition with exactly the same kind of half pages was
published. They made notes about why this was needed and [said] there was
nothing holy about the other format. The traditional page is after all just a
page. Even sifrei Torah can be written in different ways; surely Gemaras can be
done differently too.
Why, then, did you restore the traditional page and move your
commentary to the back of the book in the new editions of your Gemara?
For some people it has sentimental value. There are all kinds of
people who are sentimental, and sometimes you give the people who are
sentimental their sentiments.
The new Gemaras have the name “Rabbi Adin Even-Israel
Steinsaltz” on the front cover. Most people know you as “Rabbi Steinsaltz.”
Where did “Even-Israel” come from?
It’s a long story, but it’s connected with the Lubavitcher Rebbe. He
wanted me to change my name for some time. He didn’t give me any
explanation.
And he picked the name “Even-Israel”?
[We picked it] together in a way.
How many years ago was this?
Twenty-odd years.
Some people are unsure whether you are a Lubavitcher chassid or
not. Are you?
I am quite connected. The question is: How much? And that is
something you have to ask Lubavitcher chassidim. Some of them will tell you
that I am the pillar of Lubavitch, and some will tell you that they don’t talk to
me. So you have to ask them.
You don’t, then, necessarily define yourself as a 100 percent
Lubavitcher chassid.
I don’t know how you [measure] this. Some people know the trick. If
you tell me how it’s done, I will tell you if I am or not.
You were born in 1937 in Palestine to secular parents. How did you
become frum?
The story is too simple. I was a thinking boy.
Also, my ancestors on both sides were Rebbes – the Slonimer Rebbe
and the Worka Rebbe – and the yichus goes on farther to the Maharsha. So [the
frumkeit] was in there, and it worked itself out when the time came.
But what specifically inspired you to become frum? Was it someone
you met, something you read?
I read lots of things. I am a great reader.
But it wasn’t any kind of dramatic or traumatic thing. It was, I would
say, the very old way – something like Avraham Avinu’s way.
And your parents were okay with your decision?
My late father asked me one thing: “Are you serious about it?” And
when I said yes, he supported me all the way.
Just like that?
As I told you, my father [descended from yichus], and it showed. You
could see it in his behavior and his understanding of what is essential and
what is not essential, and what is important and what is not important.
Fast forward 40 years: In 1989, many leading charedi rabbis in Israel
banned your books, partially because they objected to your portrayal of
biblical figures in some of your writings as human beings with human
feelings and frailties rather than saints…
…I don’t want to go into the details. Some of it was not nice, but not
on my side.
On my side, I tried to do one thing, and that was to keep quiet. I could
have said lots of things, but I tried to keep quiet because I didn’t want to
besmirch anybody and it wouldn’t have done any good.
Basically, people don’t really have any questions, except that they
may not like my face. Otherwise, when it comes to any real point, there’s
nothing in it.
What about the argument that you portrayed the avos and imahos
as human beings with human faults?
Look, take Rashi or the Ibn Ezra or the Ramban or any of the
commentators – all of them do the same thing. It’s just pure nonsense what
you are saying. I depicted the avos and imahos as they are found in every
Jewish source. I just put them together, and all the rest is just a combination of
am haratzos and some dislike.
Getting back to contemporary times: In 2004, a group of Israeli
rabbanim attempted to revive the ancient semicha ritual and reestablish the
Sanhedrin. At the time, you accepted the position of nasi of the Sanhedrin.
You resigned, however, in 2008. Why did you join and why did you resign?
I thought it could be a good beginning for something, but it didn’t
work out.
What do you mean by “work out”?
Working out means more and more people get involved. If it doesn’t
get more people – and more important people – involved, it means it didn’t
somehow cut through the right place. And whatever you do, if it doesn’t
work, so it doesn’t work.
So you would suggest that the rabbis still involved in this project
let it die?
I never make a denouncement because I see good people with good
intentions involved. But somehow it hasn’t taken off.
A recent article in the Forward states that in addition to your several
dozen published non-fiction works, you’ve also written detective novels. Is
that true?
I didn’t publish any.
Why not?
There are all kinds of things I’ve written that I didn’t publish. I didn’t
feel the need or I didn’t feel they are good enough or useful.
Will you publish them one day?
I don’t know, I’ll see. Possibly when I read them again I’ll have a
better opinion.
What projects are you currently working on?
We are going to publish a new edition of Mishnayos. We are also
working on an edition of the Rambam with a commentary by me and others that
makes a better connection between the Rambam and the Shulchan Aruch. And
I’m doing a project about the commentary on the Bible, and other things as well.
— originally published June 22, 2012
Postscript: The second volume of Koren’s Steinsaltz Talmud, “Shabbat:
Part 1,” was published in September 2012