ism's central rabbinical writings. Who is
this rabbi, what is so special about his
work, and is there a mass market for the
Talmud?
To Translate Or Not?
Born in Palestine and raised in a very
socialist, very secular family, Adin
Steinsaltz studied Marx and Freud as a
youth. While in his teens, his parents had
a private tutor teach him the basics of the
Talmud so he would be familiar with Or-
thodox teachings — and could know-
ledgeably refute them. This plan of his
broad-minded parents backfired: The boy
was more attracted to Talmud than to
Marxian dialectics. At the age of 15, he
left school and spent a year studying in a
yeshiva. By the time he reached the univ-
ersity, he has said, he was a "full-fledged
reactionary," studying for a degree in
physics and mathematics by day and
learning Talmud at night.
For the last 20 years, Rabbi Steinsaltz
has been translating the Talmud into
Hebrew. By now, he has translated 21
volumes of an anticipated 40-volume se-
ries. One million copies are in print. It is
expected to take Rabbi Steinsaltz an-
other 15 years to translate the balance of
the series.
The English translation came about
seven years ago when Pam Bernstein, a
literary agent at the William Morris A-
gency in New York, heard Rabbi Stein-
saltz talk at the 92nd Street Y in New
York. Bernstein, who had already repre-
sented the rabbi on three previous book
sales to a Jewish publisher in the United
States, was transfixed by the talk. ("He's
the most real person I've ever seen," said
Bernstein.) Speaking with the rabbi after
his talk, she discovered that his goal was
to have his Hebrew translation of the
Talmud published in English.
Bernstein said she approached several
major American publishers. Random
House, she says, "wanted the Talmud
from the start." Peter Osnos, a top editor
at Random House, was then working on
the autobiography of Anatol Sharansky,
the former Soviet dissident now living in
Jerusalem. Osnos was particularly im-
pressed that Sharansky and several other
of his friends, most of whom were scien-
tists, were studying with Rabbi Stein-
saltz. Osnos, a secular Jew who was vir-
tually ignorant about the Talmud, was
also attracted to the rabbi's project be-
cause he wanted to make a contribution
to contemporary Jewish life.
In a sense, the editor seemed to be at-
tracted to, yet estranged from, modern
Judaism. At the start of World War Two,
Osnos' parents had fled from Poland to
India, where he was born. The family
eventually came to the United States.
Here, recalls Osnos, he was "not raised to
be immersed in Jewish life at all," yet his
parents' lives were "deeply and indelibly
marked by Judaism."
The first volume of the Talmud released
by Random House is part of a tractate
known as Bava Metzia (Hebrew for
"Middle Gate.") It focuses on the resolution
of disputes in daily life, such as rival claims
to the ownership of property. Traditionally,
it is one of the first volumes of the Talmud
studied by students.
Another incentive to publish Bava
Metzia before other volumes, said an aide
to Rabbi Steinsaltz, was "to make Jewish
readers aware of Jewish business ethics."
Also being simultaneously released by
Steinsaltz has
been called
the Jewish
genius not
only of this
era, but
of many.
Random House's Peter Osnos: Betting on a wide audience for the Talmud.
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
27
CLOSE UP
had preceded it — and the resources to
mount a full-scale promotion for the Tal-
mud, a peculiar turn-of-events given that
the Talmud has survived reasonably well
minus a media blitz for about 1,300 years.
Last Sunday, for instance, Random
House placed a full-page ad touting the
Steinsaltz edition in the New York Times'
book review section. ("Read It. Study It.
Treasure It. As you never could before.")
Rabbi Steinsaltz has already appeared on
"Good Morning, America," CNN, "CBS
News' Nightwatch," and National Public
Radio's "All Things Considered." He has
been followed for a week by a reporter
from New York's trendy Seven
Days magazine. And on the side, he has
given Talmud classes to a gaggle of Chi-
cago lawyers, Wall Street investment bank-
ers, and New York writers.
Present at this third class were, among
others, Alfred Kazin, Hugh Nissenson,
Anne Roiphe, Leonard Fein, William
Novak, Betty Frieden, Lore Segal,
Joseph Papp and Mort Zuckerman. (The
last two are not writers, but, presumably,
know a lot about them. Papp is an in-
novative theater producer and Zucker-
man is publisher of both The Atlantic and
U.S. News and World Report.)
Invited, but absent, were Woody Allen
and Cynthia Ozick. The wit of the former,
and the wisdom of the latter would have
been much appreciated at the class,
where several of the participants, despite
their teacher's many efforts, tried to
steer the conversation toward volatile,
contemporary, non-Talmudic subjects,
such as the role of the Jew in the world
today, Jewish theocracy, Israeli oppres-
sion of Palestinians, women's rights, and
the propriety of authority (divine, rabbin-
ical and otherwise). This was a clash of
cultures and of attitudes, of those who
have embraced, as artists, the creation of
themselves as their pivotal quest in life,
and those who have subsumed their lives
to the word of the Creator — and to inter-
preting its permutations and intents on
their lives.
All this gave many detours — all of
them unexpected, many of them
undesired by a good portion of the parti-
cipants — to Rabbi Steinsaltz's class. In
a sense, the class took on its own "stream
of consciousness," a quality that perme-
ates the Talmud, as editor Arthur Kurz-
weil had said while introducing Rabbi
Steinsaltz. What was intended as an exe-
gesis by the rabbi of a Talmudic passage
about a shepherd accused of stealing sev-
eral animals became, at times, a round-
robin on more modern and significantly
less pastoral matters including creativity
vs. relying on authority. At moments, it
even devolved into a subtle attack on
Rabbi Steinsaltz.
In a way, the debate was another side of
the discusssion about the largest publish-
ing company in the U.S. marketing Juda-