religious doesn't just mean believing
or affirming but entering a whole
culture. Steinsaltz is reticent about
his early religious searchings but
does say that he changed gradually
during his teens and that "it was a
very lonely time for me." He says be-
lief came hard. "I had to fight my way
into Judaism step by step."
At 15, Steinsaltz left school and
spent a year studying in a yeshiva.
By the time he reached the univer-
sity he was a "full-fledged reactio-
nary," studying for a degree in
physics and mathematics by day and
learning Talmud at night. He has
never stopped living in both worlds,
never ceased shuttling between
heaven and earth, as it were, to ex-
plain each to the other.
As a baal teshuvah (one who
chooses to become Orthodox) himself,
Steinsaltz is sensitive to the dilemma
of adopting a new religious lifestyle
without rejecting all of one's past
values. He has written a book on the
subject, A Guide To Baalei Teshuvah,
which will be published in English
this fall. It is a practical guide to
Jewish rituals as well as an attempt
to help returnees integrate into the
observant community. The book is
unique in that it deals with the
psychological as well as religious as-
pects of becoming observant. It re-
jects extremism and urges a sense of
balance —" a perennial theme for
Steinsaltz.
An American Reform rabbi,
Herbert Weiner, tells in his fascinat-
ing book 9 1/2 Mystics, about his own
search into Jewish mysticism. In it,
he describes Steinsaltz, just 26 at the
time they met, as an ideal teacher for
how he could open windows between
Judaism's hidden "inner" world and
the world outside. "Just as unusual
as Steinsaltz's abundance of knowl-
edge," Weiner wrote, "was his capab-
ility for lucid explanation that was
able to relate seemingly outdated
teachings to the most immediate of
modern problems."
Steinsaltz's seemingly endless
curiosity had led him to write a
number of books in the last few years
while continuing his mammoth Tal-
mud project. He set out to write a
book about Biblical zoology but his
first volume never got beyond dis-
cussing insects in the Bible, so he is
not expanding the work to include
more volumes. His study of Jewish
mysticism, The Thirteen Petalled
Rose, is a personal exposition that
presents the Kabbalah as the au-
thentic theology of the Jewish people.
Beggars And Prayers is a retel-
ling and commentary on the stories of
Rabbi Nachman of Bratslay. A book
to be published in English soon, Bi-
blical Images, consists of psychologi-
cal profiles of Biblical heroes. His
most popular book, The Essential
Talmud, written over a period of a
few weeks, surveys, for novices, the
history, structure, content and
method of Talmudic thought. Stein-
saltz is reportedly now also writing a
detective thriller, set in Jerusalem,
as a change of pace.
Says Steinsaltz of his varied
interests and writings, "I do all of
these things because I am basically
lazy. I fool myself. I create an illusion
that I don't work because I am always
Friday, May 18, 1984
15
Cra ig Terhow itz
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Rabbi Steinsaltz, with his ever present pipe, likes to talk about any subject because To me, everything is Torah."
-
doing something else, not what I
should be doing. Some of my best
ideas I never have time to develop
fully."
How come this frail man can do
so much? He lectures, writes occa-
sional newspaper columns and ap-
pears on radio and TV discussion
shows in Israel — not to mention his
whirlwind U.S. speaking tour. He
had major surgery several years ago
in which a distended spleen, caused
by a sometimes fatal genetic condi-
tion called Gaucher's disease, was
removed. But he says he is in good
health now and never felt better.
He works at a frenetic pace,
sleeping only a few hours a night, but
he often speaks of the need to take a
long-range look at problems facing
Jews. And he means long range. "I
have to look at the next five hundred
years," he says, not out of arrogance
but because even a small decision
made today will affect the Jewish
community hundreds of years from
now."
For a mystic, Steinsaltz is
doggedly pragmatic. His ability to
see so many sides of an issue has
made him, in a country of hawks and
doves, difficult to label. He noted
with pride that he has good friends in
both the Gush Emunim and Peace
Now camps who seek his advice. He
stresses that a solution to the prob-
lem of the West Bank has both prac-
tical and moral dimensions: "Mor-
ally, I feel we have every right to be
there and that we have as much right
to Shechem as to Tel Aviv. But prac-
tically, that's a different story. Since
I believe
that Israel will remain ours
.
centuries from now, I question if this
is the best time to make a move.
"I have patience," he added, "be-
cause I believe Israel will stay a force
and that the Arabs will decline in the
decades ahead."
But Steinsaltz worries about the
present and the threat, not from the
Arabs, but from within the Jewish
people, citing the increase of assimi-
lation in the Diaspora. "Time is
against us," he asserts. "As hard as
we run, we are not even staying in
place."
And he explains, almost reluc-
tantly, that for all his many inter-
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