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Endangered Species?
A worried Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz tackles problems facing the future of Judaism.
Sandee Brawarsky
Special to the Jewish News
A
n interviewer of Rabbi
Adin Steinsaltz can ask a
single question, sit back
and witness an amazing stream
of topics, the workings of an
uncommon mind. The rabbi's
clear blue eyes light up when he
knows he has taken a particular-
ly satisfying ramble. Many speak
of his genius: A master of talmu-
dic law and of Judaism's hidden
wisdom, his interests and com-
mand of subjects is vast.
Rabbi Steinsaltz is a man who
moves easily in many worlds. He
is devoted to his family, has writ-
ten more than 60 books and set
up institutions of Jewish learning
in several countries. He is sought
out by religious leaders of other
faiths and major thinkers in vari-
ous fields. He has met with the
Dalai Lama, Alan Dershowitz,
Leon Kass and Woody Allen, and
has studied Talmud with Itzhak
Perlman as well as a group in
Washington, including the late
Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan,
Justice Antonin Scalia and Sen.
Joseph Lieberman.
His new book, We Jews: Who
Are We and What Should We Do?
(Jossey-Bass; $24.95), showcases
the quality of his mind and the
depth of his concern for the
Jewish people. The book includes
profound questions along with
provocative answers that lead to
more questions, covering such
topics as assimilation, leadership,
Jewish identity, Jewish character,
stereotypes of Jews, chosenness,
anti-Semitism, the Jews' role in
the world and the Jewish future.
He also discusses issues of holi-
ness, faith, messianism and
prayer.
For Rabbi Steinsaltz, Jews are
an endangered species — and
he's worried.
Family Conversation
"This is a book about Jews:' he
60
writes. "It is a private, intimate
conversation within the Jewish
family."
And family is how he defines
the Jewish people — not as a
religion, nation, race or ethnic
group.
"To be a member of a family is
a fact that a person can relate to
emotionally in any manner he
pleases, but he cannot alter the
fact or cut the tie Rabbi
Steinsaltz writes. "He is geneti-
cally bound up with the family
past, and thereby also bound to
its present and future."
Each of the 12 chapters con-
cludes with questions posed by
Rabbi Steinsaltz's longtime editor
and student, Arthur Kurzweil,
who also wrote the foreword. To
Kurzweil's question of whether
the Jews are a dysfunctional fam-
ily, Rabbi Steinsaltz replies that
Jews function — with their
infighting and disputes and also
defense of one another — like a
normal but not ideal family.
In his first chapter, "Are We
Actors with Masks?" he writes of
the innate ability of Jews to imi-
tate others, particularly their
hosts in other nations, in their
interior and exterior lives. Over
generations, Jews have been able
to wander from place to place
and truly fit in, becoming at
times "more English than the
English, more French than the
French." But this chameleon-like
quality has its considerable
strains and dangers when Jews
lose the essence of who they are.
In the chapter titled "What
Will Become of the Jewish
People he calls for an unprece-
dented effort of renewal. He
explains that Jews cannot rely on
their past, that Jewish education
should not just be for children
but also for their parents and
grandparents, and that it's possi-
ble to create a second center of
Jewish life in the diaspora.
In a voice full of hope, Rabbi
Steinsaltz concludes that many
Jews, even if estranged from
Judaism, are first-rate people
who "can become the foundation
for a different, better future!'
Self-Taught
The book grew out a series of
essays Rabbi Steinsaltz wrote
more than a decade ago while a
scholar at the Woodrow Wilson
Institute in Washington, D.C.
"In many ways the book is
more timely now than when it
was written," he says in a conver-
sation that turns out to be more
about current interests rather
than his latest book.
The book of which he spoke
most was the one he was reading
at the time, a 1929 biography of
the French statesman Joseph
Fouche by the Austrian writer
Stefan Zweig.
Rabbi Steinsaltz, the recipient
of the Israel Prize and the French
Order or Arts and Literature, was
born in Jerusalem in 1937 and
grew up as the only child of a
decidedly non-religious, socialist
family. He studied physics and
chemistry at Hebrew University
and began his journey to
Orthodoxy as a teenager.
Although Time magazine profiled
Rabbi Steinsaltz in 1988 — refer-
ring to him as a "once in a mil-
lennium scholar" — several
American Jews have followed his
. A.
Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
"Once-in-a-Millennium Scholar" —Time Magazine
S
Who Are We
and What Should
We Do?
"Our 'chosen' status' demands that we be the priests to the world,"
writes Rabbis Steinsaltz in We Jews.
career from an earlier time.
"He doesn't sound how he
looks," says Steve Shaw, a rabbi,
organizational consultant and
field naturalist who met Rabbi
Steinsaltz in Israel in 1964 and is
one of his oldest friends in the
United States."That's part of the
fascination with him!'
Shaw adds, "He has a voice and
a stance that's hard to classify,
with a great sense of humor. He's
basically an autodidact!'
When Shaw first encountered
the young red-haired rabbi, he
was seeking answers to some
profound questions.
"He speaks from an Orthodox
Jewish tradition, but he- breaks all
the stereotypes:' Shaw says.
During Shaw's years of run-
ning the Radius Institute in the
1970s and '80s, he brought Rabbi
Steinsaltz to the United States
and had him speak about the
Talmud to new audiences and in
dialogue with various public fig-
ures about the dilemmas of
modernity.
"As someone who studied both
math and physics as well as
probed the depths of Jewish mys-
ticism, he's capable of seeing a
level or reality that most of us
have no contact with," Shaw says.
As Shaw points out, those who
are familiar with concepts of
Lurianic Kabbalah and the Tanya
will find much that resonates in
this latest book.
Rabbi Herbert Weiner's vivid
and sensitive portrait of Rabbi
Steinsaltz in his 1969 book 91/,
Mystics remains timely. When
Rabbi Weiner first met Rabbi
Steinsaltz in Jerusalem, he found
his ideal teacher in the 26-year-
old rabbi. Rabbi Weiner recounts
that when the then president of
Israel, Zalman Shazar, held a
reception to celebrate the publi-
cation of the first volume of the
Steinsaltz edition of the Talmud,
religious authorities and Talmud
scholars joined with representa-
tives of Israel's Socialist Party.
In Rabbi Weiner's words,
October 6 • 2005