Religion: Giving The Talmud to the Jews

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All of the spiritual, legal and cultural teaching that forms the heart of . traditional Judaism is contained in the massive sacred book the Talmud. Yet for most Jews that book is closed: without specialized training, it has been impossible to understand it. In a recent poll, 84% of Israeli Jews reported they had never read any of it. The reason is simple: the text is dauntingly complex.

The written compilation of centuries of oral wisdom, the Talmud was completed 1,500 years ago in two versions, named for their places of origin. The commonly used Babylonian text runs to 2.5 million words. The Jerusalem (or Palestinian) Talmud, far less known, is half as long, but many sections are so condensed as to be unintelligible. Its message was alive only for scholars and a handful of others. Now that is changing because a brilliant Orthodox rabbi named Adin Steinsaltz believes Judaism is in peril if "an essential part of our people are cut off from the Talmud."

He is working to produce new editions of both Talmudic texts, a feat no scholar has ever attempted, and, at age 50, is well along on the monumental task. This summer his Institute for Talmudic Publications will print Volume XX of the Babylonian Talmud, the halfway point, with completion expected in 15 years. To date, nearly 1 million of the various books have been sold, and an English translation is planned. Last month the long-awaited first volume of the Steinsaltz Jerusalem Talmud was issued. The first printing sold out in a matter of days; a second appeared last week.

"He will stand like Rashi and Maimonides," says Israeli Historian Zeev Katz, daring to compare the contemporary rabbi with the two great Jewish sages of medieval times. The assertion that Steinsaltz is a once-in-a-millennium scholar is particularly remarkable coming from Katz, a leader of Israel's association of secular humanists. But the diminutive, soft-spoken Steinsaltz inspires superlatives from all Jewish factions. In recognition of his achievements, he has just been named winner of the 1988 Israel Prize, his nation's highest honor. The rabbi greeted the news with characteristic mirth: "Gee, one gets that a year before one dies."

A self-described "commuter between heaven and earth," Steinsaltz did university work in physics and mathematics rather than rabbinics and had a rigidly secular upbringing in Jerusalem. His father Avraham, a far-left socialist, was an early Zionist and proudly Jewish, but he kept any religious sentiments carefully concealed. Little Adin read Lenin and Freud before his bar mitzvah. Later, however, the family saw to it that he was tutored in the Talmud and attended a religious high school. Explained Avraham: "I don't care if you are a heretic. I don't want you to be an ignoramus."

Adin was bored at school and far more interested in the struggle to establish the state of Israel than in spiritual questions. "I am by nature a skeptic," he remarks. But the youth who looked upon believers with disdain was slowly and inexplicably drawn to faith. "I never climbed high mountains or shot lions. The way to religion was the beginning of an adventure, and a very big one," he says. "It came to the point that this world was not enough."