Dateline: 11/04/99

"Jewish lore is filled with tales of formidable rabbis. Probably none living today can compare in genius and influence to Adin Steinsaltz." (Newsweek) Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz was our chat guest on November 3, 1999. He spoke about his newest book, Simple Words: Thinking About What Really Matters in Life.

judaismADM
The About.com Judaism Site (http://judaism.about.com) welcomes you to this special chat with Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz.

RabbiAdinSteinsaltz
Hello. Chatting is a very good thing because sermonizing and moralizing usually gets a very negative reaction.

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Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz is internationally regarded as one of the leading scholars and rabbis of this century, and is probably the most distinguished living Jewish scholar in the world. The Founder of the Israeli Institute for Talmudic Publications, he has published over 60 books on the Talmud, Jewish mysticism, sociology, historical biography, and philosophy; his work has been translated worldwide.

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He is best known for his interpretation, commentaries, and translations of the Talmud, a monumental task that he began over 25 years ago. Twenty-eight volumes of Rabbi Steinsaltz's Hebrew edition of the Talmud have been published with over 2 million books in print, with completion (at an estimated 42 volumes total) expected over the next decade. Eighteen volumes have been translated into English and have been published in the United States to critical acclaim. Volumes nineteen to twenty-one will be published November of 1999.

RabbiAdinSteinsaltz
32 volumes 

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Rabbi Steinsaltz is also the founder of the Jewish Universities in Moscow and St. Petersburg. He was given the title "spiritual chief rabbi" of the former Soviet Union, and remains deeply involved in the future of the Jews of the region, traveling to Russia and the Republics once a month from Jerusalem.

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He has been a resident scholar at major academic institutions in Europe and the U.S., among them Yale University and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. In Israel, he serves as the Dean of the Mekor Chaim of Jerusalem network of schools, which encompasses kindergarten through high school. In the United States, Rabbi Steinsaltz's activities are supported by the Aleph Society in New York City, where he periodically lectures. Married with three children, Rabbi Steinsaltz lives in Jerusalem, Israel.

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Rabbi Steinsaltz has joined us today to talk about his newest book, Simple Words: Thinking about What Really Matters in Life (Simon & Schuster; October 1999). The book is a product of a lifetime of thinking about spiritual matters. Anecdotal and instantly accessible, Simple Words, is a guide to everyday life, to the things that matter most - love, sex, death, spirit, family, etc. Simple Words is the distilled wisdom of this great religious thinker.

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Thank you for joining us today in chat, Rabbi Steinsaltz. Do you want to say anything before we ask our first question?

IrvDav
As a student of Kabala, what is your opinion of the Bible Codes based on ELS?

RabbiAdinSteinsaltz
I do not think that people should pay too much attention to this or to try and  predict the future with it. There are very interesting, illuminating things about it. But understood a kind of beauty, similar to appreciating the beauty of a crystal. I don't believe in the predictive power of it.

RabbiAdinSteinsaltz
I'm waiting about more questions about the same topic.

zolemica
Thank you, and thank you for typing for the Rabbi. Please thank him for this chat. My question is this: what is ELS?

IrvDav
Equidistant Letter Skipping

zolemica
ok thanks

RabbiAdinSteinsaltz
They are quite a number of books on it. Some of them new in one way or another, and some more than 60 years old. More and more done and newer ones more sensational and more reliable. All in all it is very remote in contents in Kabbalah. Not some kind of game. It doesn't stand on making a connections that will make sense. Far more serious.

judaismADM
In your newest book Simple Words, you focus on words such as love, sex, family, good, God, .... What about words like hope, work, want, fear, ... What made you chose certain words over other words?

RabbiAdinSteinsaltz
It was in some ways the words that you choose over words that come to mind. In one way, thought more important in the context in usual conversation of usual thinking. In fact, I am in two weeks from now I am going from place to place for a lecture tour. And I am going to talk about more words in the same basic way.

zolemica
Judaism is a very family/marriage oriented faith. What does it have to say about being single? Especially since there are more single people now then ever.

RabbiAdinSteinsaltz
It is truly very marriage oriented. It sees every single person as only half of a complete person. And it begins in the book of Genesis, when Adam says it's not good for a man to be alone. And it didn't change very much its opinion about that. There is no doubt that there are more single people in our time. And I don't think they can select a change in human nature. But I think they can select a change in social structure and expectations that people have. Some of them, complete and are living in that structure. In many ways cruel environment, stay single, and not only with a complete choice in free will.

IrvDav
How is the state of Judaism in Russia? I know you visit there.

RabbiAdinSteinsaltz
In some ways, like in so many places in the US, it is endangered. But more so than in other parts of Europe the Jewish community has been completely broken. And the individuals are kept, wherever they are, not connected to each other and most are not connected to any. And the tendency of them is to disappear painfully. When I say that, I mean, that for a Jew to lose identity, spiritually or psychologically, whatever term one wants to choose, is a painful experience

RabbiAdinSteinsaltz
In some ways, in the former Soviet Union, it is like others who do some work there, in a way like the resurrection of the dead. Trying to give your life to the dry bones. I believe that at least part of it is possible. How far depends on the effort, the time, and the resources available to put into it.

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From Robert Kaiser: Previously you had started work on a commentary of Talmud Yerushalmi (the Jerusalem Talmud) and a translation into Modern Hebrew. Is this project going to continue in the near future? Will any volumes from this project be translated into English?

RabbiAdinSteinsaltz
Is a certain chance that volume will not appear within this Jewish year. But the translation into English is a little too early to contemplate.

zolemica
What is being done to help Russian Jews?

RabbiAdinSteinsaltz
There are different types of help. Some of it is being done by different international organizations in very much by the Joint (JDC) which is providing in many ways material ways, and in some ways self-help for the elderly and sick. There are one, two, three organizations that try to organize some schools. I am involved in a Jewish teachers union called Lamed to organize and help train the Jewish teachers who teach anything to do with Jewish subjects. Some books and articles are being published. Quite a big a lot of work is being done, but it is still very far from what is needed. We don't have any central bodies of any real importance that can transmit and before you have to search for individuals a very wide attempt that will somehow reach our own people. 

judaismADM
"Jocasta Complex." You coined this name for Jewish Mother syndrome. Could you elaborate on what you mean by this complex?

RabbiAdinSteinsaltz
Well, it is half a joke, of course. But in the Greek mythology, Jocasta is the mother of Oedipus. So if the Oedipus complex is the love, the desire, of the child towards his mother, then the parallel, that is the relationship with all the complexes, between mother and child should be called the Jocasta complex.

zolemica
I was curious. I've heard anti-Semitism is on the rise in Russia--is that true? And what can we do to help if it's true?

RabbiAdinSteinsaltz
It is very hard to verify. There are more anti-Semitic things in what's called public. Under the Soviet rule, anti-Semitic propaganda was a crime. Now there is more freedom of expression, everything is allowed. But generally speaking, my estimate is that Russian anti-Semitism is usually a political phenomena which begins from above and not from below. Meaning that anti-Semitic expressions used by political and other leaders are done for a purpose and do not really reflect what many of the average people think. There is, of course, a certain amount of envy, sometimes resentment, by what is called usually called the "new Russians" that view a certain number of Jews who became successful, economically, sometimes politically. If one needs proof, perhaps which is not always pleasant, is the number of mixed marriages is not becoming smaller. This means, that Jews as individuals, are not hated or despised by the other people. Again as individuals they show their opinion by marrying them.

judaismADM
God, sex, love, death, friends, ... are called "simple words." However, as you explore each of them in your book, the reader discovers they are not so simple. Is this what you wanted the reader the to discover?

RabbiAdinSteinsaltz
Of course. In certain ways people could say even the term "simple words" is at least ironic. It means that people speak or make decisions or form opinions on the most important and sometimes complex matters with a lack of knowledge or understanding. So, when people begin to think that all these basic terms are easily used and misused are matters that need thinking about, it may change, as I hope, attitudes and ways of behavior. So, most of the simple words also expressed in that book, in other fields, are perhaps the most complex ones. Life, number, zero, weight, ... all these things are simple words. And each of them, if looked into, sometimes a riddle, and often at least a matter, a man must think a lot and research.

judaismADM
Perhaps the name of the book could have been "Powerful Words"

RabbiAdinSteinsaltz
They are, of course, powerful words. But I don't want to frighten people. I just want to make people aware. And speaking about powerful words, or key words of the most important issues, could be frightening and make people try to avoid them.

IrvDav
To sum up, the Code exists not for the future but as a thing of beauty?

RabbiAdinSteinsaltz
Irv, yes.

LloydG3
In your Reference Guide to the Talmud you deal extensively with Halacha. Are there any books or commentaries that treat Agada with any degree of analysis?

RabbiAdinSteinsaltz
I don't know how many of them are in English. There are some books in Hebrew.

LloydG3
I read Hebrew

RabbiAdinSteinsaltz
And there are a certain number of papers dealing with the subject from general attempts at analysis to detailed research in specific books of sources. I know that there are some translations of Halacha sources in English and some of them are extensive, which may be helpful. But I don't know which has been published in the English language on the subject. And if there are any very good source materials for that.

judaismADM
In the chapter on sex, you write "The physical union enhances the spiritual union of two individuals." Are you familiar with the work of Rabbi Boteach, author of Kosher Sex? Is there a difference between his and your ideas concerning sex and Judaism?

RabbiAdinSteinsaltz
I know Rabbi Boteach personally. I don't know what he had written in that book  There are possibly more fundamental sources in his book.

judaismADM
In your book, "envy" was given a great deal of credit. It is credited with being a major motivator in people's achievements, for being a destructive force between people, in some cases the reason for "equalitarian" political movements, and so on. Do you think some people are more envious than others? Do you think some people are innately motivated or destructive for reasons other than "envy"?

RabbiAdinSteinsaltz
Well, first of all, people are different from each other, in almost everything, including the amount of envy that they possess. That is obvious to anyone. There are a lot of other forces that motivate people, for good or for bad. Envy is one very powerful element, and a very common one. It is truly not the only motivating power either for good or for evil. In fact, I tried to point out that there are many other natural, or very common, traits it can be used in opposite directions, either positively or negatively. People should know that envy is powerful, but there are quite a number of other sources that motivate us in everything.

judaismADM
How can the study of the Talmud enhance our 1999 lives?

RabbiAdinSteinsaltz
Whether it is 1999 or 2200, it won't be very different from say the year 12 or the year 13 or the year 112 in the sense that as a People, some with basic problems, the real work in studying it is not to just understand a written material but to be able to apply it in different circumstances in every time, in every place. In different circumstances, the basic notions and basic sources can be applied. It would be similar to be how can multiplication table be applied in the year 300 BCE or in the year 2100 of CE. The rules are basically the same. The application, whether I'm counting camels or computers, is that something people have to remember.

judaismADM
What do you think about online chats like this as a way of communicating?

RabbiAdinSteinsaltz
I think that in general it is a rather new, powerful tool in which people can reach to each other,  ask questions, and at least think about answers. It is a pity that they cannot do it more, or more often, because this attempt to have communication with many people, passive and active, and chat and talk with them, is always something that is new and helpful. It also enables people who usually cannot communicate with each other due to physical or psychological distance to touch each other. 

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Rabbi Steinsaltz, do you want to make any closing comments?

RabbiAdinSteinsaltz
My closing statement would be that I hoped for more questions. More complex questions, but I am sure they will come eventually.

judaismADM
Thank you very much Rabbi Steinsaltz for volunteering your time to answer our questions. Thank you all for joining us tonight for this special chat.