(Adapted and translated from Israel’s Makor Rishon newspaper by Yossi Baumol)
Rebbe Nachman of Breslav defines the tzaddik by quoting a verse from Tehillim (139:8): “If I ascend to heaven, You are there, if I lay me down in hell, You are there.” The greatness of Rav Adin was his ability to be both in heaven and on earth at the same time. He had a panoramic view of the entire Torah, which enabled him to be an expounder par excellence. He had a multi-generational perspective, always aware of long-term trends and far-reaching developments. Nonetheless, he was always interested in the small details of one’s everyday life, whether a grown man or a small child.
As a young man, Rabbi Adin began his work on the Talmud, with the clear objective of finishing it completely. He did so as a “ba’al teshuva”—as someone who came a bit from the “outside.” To do so took incredible courage and an uncanny ability to take on such a tremendous challenge and scale that mountain with no fear, no thought of surrender.
He saw himself as a faithful narrator, tried not to express his own thoughts and opinions, but rather to submit himself to the text. Many compare him to Rashi because of the vast scope of his works, but I feel his style was more like Maimonides, who took the Torah and simplified it, intuitively comprehended its essence and made it accessible to one and all.
He would say: “Just don’t become couch potatoes, don’t be lazy, don’t get stuck!” For himself, he had plans until the age of 200—to work on the Jerusalem Talmud, the Zohar and much more. He slaved over one page after another, one commentary and the next, book by book. He cared deeply about the Jewish people and saw enabling access to our traditional treasures as his greatest challenge and opportunity. Rabbi Adin was very close to the Lubavitcher Rebbe, who once told him, “If you find yourself too busy, just take on more and more.”
Rav Adin considered assimilation and ignorance an existential threat to the Jewish people, which is why he worked so hard to bring our ancient cultural heritage to everyone. We have a great treasure, he would tell us, but let’s give everyone the code to unlock the safe! When he realized he needed many other people to join him in moving the revolution forward, he began the establishment of his educational institutions: the (short-lived) Shefa Yeshiva, the Makor Chaim Institutions and the Tekoa Hesder Yeshiva.
He was an intellectual by any standard, no subject was foreign to him. In Makor Chaim, on Purim, it is customary to auction off spiritual prizes. The winners who studied the most won the right to study the book of their choice with one of the rabbis as a study partner. Rav Adin would refuse to study with a student, but would rather take them to the zoo to discuss the various animals. He had such a wide range of interests: soccer, the British royal dynasty, sciences, fine literature and science fiction. He could talk about anything and everything with his students.
His heart ached for the “Yiddishkeit” of Jews everywhere, and this motivated his books, his educational institutions and his endless, exhausting trips to Jewish communities around the world.
By nature he was not an educator per se. He felt great people don’t necessarily grow within institutions. He expressed his concern that perhaps his institutions had become too “institutionalized,” without enough heart and soul.
Rav Adin spoke about how our synagogue experience has become much like grown children who put their old father away in an old age home, basically telling Him don’t visit us at home, don’t invade our lives—we will come to visit You. He insisted that we not be content with synagogue life, but that a true Jewish life should be so much more.
As an intellectual, he could have hidden away in an intellectual ivory tower, but he loved and cared for people, never looking at his watch at meetings. He loved coming to interact with our students with no formalities or pretenses. He was disheveled, no-holds-barred, but always humane and loving. He combined a birds-eye view of the world with unpretentious human sensitivity, together with deep compassion for the fate of each and every one. He would constantly provoke us, always pushing, cajoling and disparaging in his attempts to move us out of our comfort zone.
Almost 40 years ago, he took me, a young man with no experience whatsoever, and imposed upon me all his dreams of what a modern-day yeshiva should look like. Over the years, in the background, we could always feel his frustration that his larger-than-life expectations were not always met. Nevertheless, throughout it all, his love and complete faith in us never wavered.
Once he told me bitterly: “If you ever hear a compliment from me, it’s time to hospitalize me,” but the truth is that in more recent years we heard more and more good words about the yeshiva from him. He was glad that the students loved the yeshiva—he especially admired their intensity in deep Talmud study and fervent prayer, something he didn’t take for granted.
He was one of the founders of a uniquely Israeli innovation—the Chasidic Zionist Yeshiva, a movement which now includes many other yeshivot besides Makor Chaim. He wanted us to become true chasidim who would awaken both the Jews and Judaism itself from slumber and stagnation. He didn’t like the Israeli-born “Sabra” persona—in his eyes it suffered from both vulgarity and ignorance. That’s why “Let My People Know” was his life’s motto. Together with his strident call for more scholarship, he also demanded devotion, insisting on touching our hearts. He would send our students as “ambassadors” to congregations abroad, but warned them not to be arrogant Israelis, but rather to humbly listen to the Jews who live there and study together with them, to bond and grow together in Judaism.
Our Rav Adin didn’t fit into any preconceived category, did not belong to any one sector or any specific social milieu. His life played out its own exclusive storyline—he lived his life as a unique and exciting plot. He lived life itself directly, with no peripheral scheming and in the most intense way possible. Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz zt”l was monumental, not only in the tremendous body of scholarship he bequeathed to future generations, but also in the way he lived his life and in the example and the very highest of standards he set for us all.
Rabbi Dov Singer is head of Makor Chaim Institutions.
