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Tribute to Rabbi Adin Steinzaltz
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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