Adin Steinsaltz

Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz was born in Jerusalem on July 11, 1937.[6] His family was secular socialist, and his father was an ardent Communist.[7][8] Biographer David Rozenson recounts that his father nevertheless insisted that a Jew should not be ignorant of Torah and allowed Adin to study Jewish texts.[7] Steinsaltz’s son later summarized his grandfather’s maxim as preferring a heretic to an ignoramus.[9]

As a teenager, Steinsaltz became religious and joined the Chabad-Lubavitch movement.[10] An important early encounter with a Chabad Hasid in Jerusalem’s Meah She’arim neighborhood led him to study Talmud and Hasidic texts alongside chemistry, physics, literature, philosophy, and other subjects. By age fourteen, he had also read widely in Socialist and Communist publications.[7]

Steinsaltz studied mathematics, physics, chemistry, and Jewish subjects at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and was ordained as a rabbi.[3][11] His scientific interests remained part of his intellectual life. A former student recalled seeing him help advanced students with physics and mathematics and, on another occasion, explain an anthill to a group of pupils as an example of the value of curiosity.[12]

At age twenty-four, Steinsaltz became Israel’s youngest school principal.[1][3] By the same age, he was teaching Jewish thought to classes that included university professors and Israeli president Zalman Shazar.[7] He worked in education in the Negev for thirteen years before returning to Jerusalem to teach, conduct research, and write for periodicals.[11]

In 1965, Steinsaltz founded the Israel Institute for Talmudic Publications and began his principal scholarly undertaking: translating and commenting on the Babylonian Talmud in modern Hebrew.[2][3] The project addressed obstacles posed by the Talmud’s Aramaic language, compressed arguments, specialized terms, and lack of a gradual structure. Steinsaltz argued that removing those technical barriers would leave readers more time for interpretation and original thought.[5]

The edition translated the Talmud from Aramaic and added explanations of phrases, concepts, and legal rulings derived from the text.[2] It also included practical applications, explanatory notes on Rashi and other commentators, and background from science, history, and the humanities.[13] Steinsaltz introduced punctuation and paragraph breaks, changed the pagination, and placed his commentary around the main text in space traditionally occupied by medieval commentators.[8]

The project took forty-five years. Its final book completed a 46-volume Hebrew series in 2010.[2] A Congressional Record tribute reported that all forty-six volumes of the English Koren Talmud Bavli had been published by 2019.[14]

The edition was translated into English, Spanish, French, Russian, Italian, and Chinese.[2][7] Its purpose was not merely to provide a literal rendering but to enable readers to follow the Talmud’s arguments and modes of thought. Steinsaltz’s English and modern Hebrew translations became freely available through Sefaria in 2017 after he approved the project in a 2013 meeting with the platform’s founders.[15]

The Talmud edition was one part of a much larger publishing career. Steinsaltz wrote more than sixty books and hundreds of articles on Jewish mysticism, religious thought, sociology, philosophy, theology, Jewish practice, zoology, and social commentary.[1][14] His other commentarial projects included the Tanakh, Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah, and the Mishnah. His complete Tanakh commentary appeared in English and Hebrew, while the Mishneh Torah commentary appeared in Hebrew.[16][10] The Thirteen Petalled Rose, an introduction to Jewish mysticism first published in 1980, appeared in at least eight languages.[3][8]

Steinsaltz’s educational work extended from publishing into institutions and direct teaching. In 1975, he established Shefa as an umbrella organization for his activities and the aim expressed by the motto “Let my people know.”[1] He founded Yeshivat Mekor in 1984 and Yeshivat Tekoa in 1999 and served as president of the Shefa middle and high schools.[3] He also held leadership roles at the Mekor Haim high school in Kfar Etzion and the hesder yeshiva in Tekoa, while the Steinsaltz Center in Jerusalem offered public Torah classes and lectures.[17]

His educational efforts reached the Soviet Union during its final years. In 1988, Steinsaltz was invited to open a Judaic Studies Center in Moscow, described as the first such institution there in sixty years. After contacts with physicist Evgeny Velikhov and other Soviet figures, the center received approval from Mikhail Gorbachev and operated under the Soviet Academy of Sciences.[1][7] It hosted underground Hebrew and Jewish-studies teachers alongside educators from Israel, Europe, and the United States. Steinsaltz also received permission to copy Jewish books and manuscripts held in Leningrad for libraries in Israel and the West.[7]

Steinsaltz also founded the Jewish University in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, described as the first degree-granting institution of Jewish studies.[3] In the mid-1990s, he supported a Jewish-studies program for remote Siberian communities. Participants received written materials and attended four annual weeklong seminars that included Shabbat study and a separate children’s program.[7]

Steinsaltz held resident-scholarly appointments at Yale University, the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, and the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Studies in Washington, D.C.[1] He delivered the Terry Lectures at Yale and was invited to a private audience with the pope in 2016.[8] His archive includes correspondence with David Ben-Gurion, Levi Eshkol, Yitzhak Rabin, Menachem Begin, Shimon Peres, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Jacques Chirac, and other public and religious figures.[9]

Steinsaltz received the Israel Prize for Jewish Studies in 1988.[4] His other honors included the Presidential Medal of Distinction in 2012, the Yakir Yerushalayim honor in 2017, honorary doctorates from several universities, the French Order of Arts and Literature, and a National Jewish Book Award.[8][6]

In 2016, Steinsaltz suffered a serious stroke that left him unable to speak, but he continued editing and proofreading manuscripts.[8][10] He died at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem on August 7, 2020, aged eighty-three, after being hospitalized with severe pneumonia.[18][10]

Steinsaltz’s defining legacy was his sustained effort to make Jewish learning accessible without treating accessibility as a substitute for scholarship. His Talmud edition supplied translations, contextual material, and explanations for readers who lacked Aramaic or a regular teacher while inviting deeper engagement with the text.[2][13] He characterized the Talmud as “the spine of our culture” and said that he wanted to restore Jewish heritage to the Jewish people.[18]

That work extended into the digital sphere. In 2013, Sefaria co-founders Joshua Foer and Brett Lockspeiser asked Steinsaltz for permission to make his English and modern Hebrew Talmud translations freely accessible online. He supported the proposal, and the translations were released on Sefaria in 2017 with support from the William Davidson Foundation.[15] “Let my people know” served as a guiding expression of his educational purpose.[1][15]

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks called Steinsaltz “the Rashi of our generation,” explaining that his commentaries had made the Babylonian Talmud accessible to millions. Sacks also described him as imaginative, humorous, unconventional, and deeply spiritual, with an unusual ability to communicate religious ideas to secular audiences.[19] Yitzhak Rabin wrote that the annotated edition opened the gates of Talmud study to anyone wishing to learn, while Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu called the volumes a precious asset and hidden treasure.[9]

Steinsaltz also articulated accessibility as a broader intellectual principle. In The Sociology of Ignorance, co-written with historian Amos Funkenstein, he argued for “open knowledge” and examined how institutions can monopolize learning.[20] His schools, yeshivas, public classes, publishing projects, and initiatives in the former Soviet Union translated that principle into educational practice.[1][3]

He inspired the launch of the Global Day of Jewish Learning in 2009, intended to connect Jewish communities through shared study.[3] The completion of the Talmud project in 2010 was marked by learning events in countries including Russia, England, Brazil, India, Canada, and Australia.[21] A Congressional Record tribute characterized his full translation and commentary as the first such completion since medieval times.[14]

Steinsaltz’s Talmud edition generated significant opposition among some Lithuanian Haredi authorities. Critics objected to its translation, punctuation, explanations, and changed page layout, arguing that easier access could weaken traditional methods of study. Rabbi Elazar Shach called for the books to be suppressed, and the project faced a public Haredi boycott.[5][9] The Jewish Virtual Library reports that Shach regarded Steinsaltz as a heretic; Conservative rabbi Jacob Neusner published How Adin Steinsaltz Misrepresents the Talmud.[3]

The opposition was not universal. Rabbi Moshe Feinstein publicly supported the translation project, and other Haredi rabbis maintained friendly or supportive relations with Steinsaltz.[9] Steinsaltz responded that his commentary addressed technical barriers involving language, context, and structure rather than eliminating interpretation. He argued that this approach could give students more time for deeper and more creative study.[5]

Steinsaltz also accepted the position of Nasi, or president, in a 2004 attempt to revive the Sanhedrin. He resigned from the position in 2008 after differences of opinion within the initiative.[3]