Tribute to Rabbi Adin Steinzaltz

who passed on this friday a few recollections and a few tidbits from various issues reports over the years rabbi steinseltz was an adam godel he was you would say among the world jewish leaders and i say this not flippantly i say this because he had a large and a very far vision about 30 years ago or so i was going to disro on twa when it still existed flying from new york to artistro and in fur in business class was rabbi steinseltz and i believe he had some secretary who was with him on the plane and i had uh i asked for permission to go in and talk with him and i was given permission to go from coach class to business class and we spoke for about an hour it was a fascinating conversation and one of the things that he told me was that if he had the funds he would he would be able to disseminate tayden yiddish kite to non-jews all over and in particular he spoke to me about his dream of translating having pirky of his ethics of fathers translated into chinese and spread it and disseminate it amongst the millions and millions of chinese people and it was clear that his vision was not just tunnel vision or short-term vision but rather long-term vision i think we could say that with his translation of the talmud of the gemara 45 years single-handedly you have to understand there's a major difference between him translating the talmud and art scroll art school has an entire staff in addition to the fact that art school is translating more the traditional way for lame day toyota's student series students of tata and robert steinsell's translation is more for the sophisticated a person if they want to know what species and uh an animal is from or what's be or where does the um this fish come from and things like that you know you find that in the steinzeld's uh talmud but besides that art school has an entire staff and rabbi steinseltz was on his own only recently did koran uh current publishers take over the steins elks talmud and they're helping and then marketing it you know but for most of the years he was on his own so one individual on his own 45 years translates the talmud and that's amazing and he didn't do it just for this generation he did it for the future so we now have this important piece of tata for jews worldwide and and also non-jews so going back to that conversation on the airplane he told me you know kind of not with a jealousy but with uh like oh if i just had access to funds like the rabbit does you know meaning to say that there ever has so many supporters but hashem and and and there's never enough but you know you could you could do much more he said if i had that i would be able to do so much more so that was uh one fascinating insight into the person and his vision in 1990 at 40 years of since yushvat uh 1990 he spoke in 770 and it's online it's been uh you know going around and there too he he criticizes uh the crowd the people the khabar nash community and his message is you know wake up from your sleep make your time every very moment valuable and get working and on one hand it's like you know here you have an opportunity to speak to so many people and you're speaking to them and you've been critical of them i mean that's kind of a sour message but on the other hand if you think about it it was the right message because 40 years is a milestone initially the sages say it's when you become mature realizing that you know what did my teacher really want and am i doing it and i get it i better get started you know so so stein's outs uh left that message for the lebanon church including the mendo foot of azeroth and the robbie pinson and then the rehearsal folgerman all the people on the dais and all the hasidim in the crowd he was telling him get moving and he lived this way very unassuming he lived this way i recall seeing them walking he he was uh you could tell a travis schneizel through his blue shirt he always wore during the week a blue shirt not a white shirt which is another telling feature about rabbit steins else he wasn't a conformist he didn't conform to society including jewish society torah society hasidic society literally society and this is what people had sometimes an issue with you know especially when the bernay brock element uh decided to attack him for his um the interpretation his book with biblical images of the elvis and the maui's and it's a discussion for another time but he thought out of the box so he was really a revolutionary a a very very creative thinker and you know one of a kind type of thinker i was told that he muhammad leibowitz and yashaya leibowitz and a few other geniuses would get together once a week or twice uh once every two weeks whatever sometimes during uh the week uh or the month and they would like two one two three in the morning they would get together and they would talk philosophy and science and tito and um you know it wasn't like we're gonna solve the world's problems but it was an opportunity for these geniuses to to to to have a schmooze you know in a on a level that makes them that makes them all you know similar so we speak about his being unique in the sense that he wasn't you know per se a habadnik now this leads me to my my next point and as part of the tribute how did you become a laboratory who formed them because every person when you look at them and you you assess their life and you want to walk away with uh with a message that you could take into in your life you don't need to know their background ever steins else uh was was raised in a non-religious family at the age of 10 his father sent him to uh yeshiva like otamatora in heritage where he was born when they started the gemara when he was a teenager 17 18 or so in the mid-50s he came to loot to the la bavich yeshiva the time to meet him my father so kazunzan was there and he remembers strength coming in speaking with several hasidim i was told that he didn't last very long in lut reflection the fame castleman the famous masjib who really groomed many many many baharim they were abundant and and leaders in their own right et cetera but abhished einstein did not uh did not seem to find a comfort level with with hayem and his method the details aren't relevant now but it didn't go and he was there a very brief time and he left and he went and he pursued basically a degree and he became a very educated person but at the same time he also met and became a talmud a student of rabbi mario sasunkin who lived for 25 years in eritrea i believe was called also maybe the jason neighborhood over there yerushalayim and he was able to respect him and learn from him another individual who had a big impact on him was rabbi um halpern who was a the love of section which is adjacent to may ashore now i want to tell you about these two people so you understand what what took steins also and how he really became a laboratory met that i believe in yet in 1918 i don't forget the exact year but i i found that that that that uh sasankin became kind of a hussed and anime you know really impressed with the rebel yet in yakshin islam when he was there for a while was more of an intellectual type you know the the uh ribslaying style was a very different style more of an emotional style although he used a lot of you know psychology and in in in in shaping the students nevertheless sasankin was more of an intellectual if you take a look at something's picture you see him you know looking up i think with a cigarette like he's you know philosophizing which stein's health because of his uh his his brain and his his his knowledge and his approach related to that and it brought him in to lubavitch and the same was rabbit helper and i spent with him several fabregas in the show in the yerushalayim and he was a big talmud i think he was also shiva for a while at tara samus in yeshiva and he was very sharp and he had tremendous discussions to the rebel which is interesting for a yid who you know grew up over there in um in hiroshima to come to a sensation to a feeling of of uh his casus in fact that ebba told several people to to go to three of maya shot him that was where he lived i mean it became an address if you want to have kind of a connection and know about lubavitch go visit him and talk to him and he had an impact on on einstein's else so they these were the two lubavitchers and also uh nochem brabinovic who was uh i believe his name was there was a binovich family yerushalayim that also had a great impact on rubbish steinzel's the result of all this was when i visited him with a friend in the ball in the shul in the old city that's amazing he would uh dive in barricades every shabbos he would stay a few hours afterwards in daven you know with great intention and kavanagh and focus so what absolutely wanted which was that every booker and every young man and every hostage especially shabbos and then and focus on prayer and all that was accomplished but it took another style of a mashpia and i think this is an important lesson for us today sometimes the masjid that you're you have in yeshiva is not your style and and and you know you can give it all up give it all up in the sense that ah the answer is no the answer is like that ever said to some people when they went by uh for dollars and they said my meshbear told me this and then ever said find yourself another mashbeer you know well how could that be i have a mashiach if that's not that much beer for you find yourself another spear and going back to rabbi stein's eldest another few points is that um he was very very uh sharp and he was cynical now you could look at cynicism as a negative you could look at it as positive he didn't have time to waste his days were counted i'm not talking about just the last five years since he became ill i'm talking about he knew he had a mission and he and and he knew that there's milk hundreds of thousands of hidden that are not yet connected and his goal was to teach and to share with with jews befrat specifically especially to to get closer to to become you know he would say not let my people go let my people know that was his slogan let my people know you know what's better than a than a jew it's an educated jew kind of that that that mentality and he lived this way his cynicism was his forthrightness to a situation without beating around the bush just like he said at that fabrega in 1990 he said that you know this american bluff you know i heard that from my great uncle that mental foot of us who said the same thing to me about the american bluff you know so stein's outs is here xiaomi and he has also that you know that sharpness you know that quickness and that honesty in a way that come on cut it out you know are you going to be determined by your white shirt or your blue shirt it's what's behind the shirt now of course shabbos we wear you know a white shirt that's tradition but if someone doesn't wear a white shirt when he can't he can't be a husset he could be a cousin and he could be his best and he needs to you know understand what's the reason for wearing white and the shabbos and and slowly you know he'll either come to it or he won't come to it but he he for example i believe one of the sons told me that he had opportunities to raise so much funds from jews that belong to conservative or reform synagogues and temples but when he would talk he he could he could lash it into them and say like how can you you know omit sections of the prayer book how can you break shabbos you know and he lost the support just by saying that he didn't care he did not care because if he felt the message needed to be said at us at that time and again that was his call he said it and and and if it meant that he they're not going to give him the donation and the funding so be it and i think that's a tremendous uh virtue of a person and with tavis nishmasa that that his honesty and forthrightness although sometimes it feels harsh and cynical and distant um but really under it it's coming from a good place and we look at his life and we give a tribute to a person like robert steinsels who left us we we need to understand that we're not all made the same and yes many people are you know kind of nicer on the outside and they and they they they sound the better and they you know on the same video he says i'm not a speaker i never was a speaker i never will be a speaker it's the message it's it's the message and the person behind it finally about uh 17 years ago i brought a friend to uh to meet rabbi schteinzels and we were there shabbos and after davenink he went over to him and he said that he learned a certain section the gemara i think was attracted to sanhedrin and it seemed him to be a trivial matter like not important why would the why would the gemura spend so much time on this you know and i and i and i just stood at the side to listen to their conversation and it was fascinating he showed him how the the the dialogue in the gemara wasn't about semantics you know one ox scoring and other acts but rather it was an entire ideology between two schools of thought and two sages one coming from this perspective and one coming from that perspective and i think when we talk about you know his genius or the talmud then one once in a lifetime and you know uh once in a century type of a scholar it's all true we need to understand that it's the seeing seeing from the seemingly insignificant unimportant trivial pieces of talmud we see an entire ethos of not just scholarship but way of life and there's the perspective the perspective of a and the perspective of b and then we dialogue about it so the details of the talmud how to understand the particular section of talmud you're studying is much larger than just details and this is something that i witnessed over there that shabbos after doing the tsa mahzadek show his his book he called about the rebel my rebbe which is also interesting my rebbe