Renowned Talmudic scholar Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz died mid-morning Friday after suffering from a serious lung infection, Shaare Zedek medical center reported. He was 83 years old.Steinsaltz was best known for his translation and commentary on the Talmud. He was the winner of the Israel Prize for Jewish Studies in 1988, received the President’s Medal in 2012, and the Yakir Yerushalayim prize in 2017.
“Rabbi Steinsaltz has been a friend of Shaare Zedek for many years and has been treated with devotion in recent years due to his health condition,” the hospital said in a statement. “The rabbi’s death is a great loss to the Jewish world. We share the grief of the family and of his many students in Israel and around the world.”
Steinsaltz had been in the hospital since Tuesday.Translating the Talmud into modern Hebrew became the center of Rabbi Steinsaltz’s life after he founded the Israel Institute for Talmudic publications in 1965, together with the Israeli government. Ultimately he published “The Talmud: The Steinsaltz Edition,” which made learning the complicated Jewish text easier and more accessible.
This work was later translated into French, Spanish, English and Russian, though the translations took many years to complete.
“With great sadness and a heavy heart, the Steinsaltz Center regrets to announce the passing of our beloved Rav and teacher Harav,” the Steinsaltz center said in a statement.Bayit Yehudi leader Naftali Bennett paid tribute to Steinsaltz saying, “The passing of Rabbi Adin Even-Israel is painful. A fountain of the wisdom of Israel. One of the greatest thinkers and scholars of the last generation.”We owe him a huge debt for making the treasures of the wisdom of Israel accessible in a language deep and equal to every soul. He left behind a huge legacy of love for Israel and love for Torah.”
Jerusalem Affairs Minister Rafi Peretz eulogized Steinsaltz, calling him “a noble and humble man who with the help of his life’s work brought many closer to Judaism – a truly righteous man.”Israeli rabbinical organization Tzohar said in a statement, “Tzohar was deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, an exceptional leader of both Torah and love for the land. “His life’s work opened countless doors for people to study and helped bridge the diverse communities within the Jewish world,” the statement continued. “He will be forever remembered as a teacher defined by passionate caring for his people and spreading the beauty of Judaism all across the globe.”
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