A Personal Steinsaltz

I first got to know the late Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz (Even-Israel) in the early 1990s when he came to Washington as a scholar-in-residence, together with his adolescent son Meni. I already knew him as the greatest living Torah scholar, having studied Talmud using his Hebrew-language commentaries. There was so much more that he accomplished and impacted, which requires separately a long and thorough reckoning by accomplished scholars. My post is personal.

In 1992, I found myself working in Moscow and spending a couple of Shabbats a month at the relatively new Steinsaltz yeshiva in the wooded suburb of Kuntsevo. The campus had been the dacha of the Mayor of Moscow; it was charming and rustic, and for most of the Russian Jewish young men studying there it was luxurious. I didn’t see Rabbi Steinsaltz diring my time there, but his spirit of reigniting post-Soviet Jewish life through knowledge and fellowship pervaded.

A few years later, I arrived in Geneva to find Meni was getting his start as a Lubavitch emissary ("shaliach") at Beth Habad de Geneve, which led to many other adventures and a deep friendship all its own. Although personally he was affiliated with the Lubavitch movement, Rabbi Steinsaltz engaged and identified publicly with an 'all of Judaism' approach, which indeed may represent the most powerful expression of Lubavitch aspirations.

Not unlike some other spiritual giants, including the Dalai Lama, Rabbi Steinsaltz could also display an impish sense of humor. Always needing funds for his many initiatives, he visited Geneva once and gave a well attended speech. The front row was filled with some of the wealthiest Jews in Geneva — an international set, ready to be appeased as well as impressed. After being introduced and welcomed with great fanfare, the famous sage opened his remarks by noting that people in Geneva only ever want to talk about money. If not for the emanation of holiness through his presence in the room, I am sure that three or four of the organizers would have died from shock right on the spot.

Once in the mid-1990s, I drove from Geneva to pick up Rabbi Steinsaltz at Charles de Gaulle airport and bring him in to Paris for a one-on-one shmooze before his other meetings — is there any better way to spend an afternoon?? With cell phones still a luxury, I waited out front until he came out the automatic doors. After he settled into the passenger seat, I explained respectfully that I couldn't in good conscience risk the life of such a Torah sage. I offered him a choice: He could either keep his seat belt unbuckled or he could continue smoking his pipe. He graciously chose to buckle up and puff away.

The Steinsaltz home in Jerusalem had such an unassuming air of normalcy that I'd have to remind myself who I was with. But that was his way. He was the last person who would ever express any sense of his own importance. His concern for others was constant, and his wisdom just trickled out in the course of conversation.

Through Meni and the late Ralph Goldman, the visionary-in-chief of the Joint Distribution Committee — and sometimes through my official duties — I was blessed with numerous opportunities to experience Rabbi Steinsaltz up close. On occasion I may have been of some use to him, but mostly I was not there through my own merit or importance. Each time was a gift.

I never needed reminding of how precious these encounters were. Now that he's left the physical realm, I feel his presence and his impetus to do more and facilitate more to advance his ethos and vision. And to share some of what I and many others were able to see firsthand of the way he lived his life.

May we all be blessed and sanctified through his memory.