The source of Jewish tradition

 

Mordechai Beck

A new translation of the Babylonian Talmud has brought this pillar of Jewish education into the modern era

On Sunday 7 November a worldwide celebration will take place for one of the most arcane books ever written in the annals of human literacy, the Babylonian Talmud. Redacted some 1,500 years ago in the Jewish diaspora's largest community, on the banks of the Euphrates, the Talmud provided the backbone of Jewish civilization and was a major factor in the survival of this exiled, wandering people. A potpourri of legal discussions, legends, stories, and sundry commentaries on biblical texts, it was the central pillar of Jewish education right up to the modern era.

The problem is that much of it is written in a form of demotic Aramaic, a language that the majority of Jews have long ceased to understand, let alone speak – outside of a small coterie of specialist and mainly rabbinic scholars and their students. Moreover, a proper study of its 24 volumes and 5,700 folio pages takes years.

Enter Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, a man described by Time magazine as "a mind in a millennium". An Israeli from a secular home, he was drawn to this esoteric text as a youth and determined to translate it into modern Hebrew. He was 27 when he began the project, now, 45 years later, aged 72, he has completed the last volume of his astounding undertaking.

As if to explain the length of the project, he admits "I am a slow writer," adding parenthetically that he has written another 13 books on Jewish philosophy and law, "on the side". But it was his work on the Talmud that absorbed most of his waking hours over the past four and half decades. "I was very concerned," he says, "that there would be no ambiguities in the Hebrew, so I went over it many times." The result is an elegant, simple Hebrew that any Israeli or other Hebrew speaker will find crystal clear. Translations of some of these texts have also been made in English, French and Russian.

Apart from the text itself Rabbi Steinsaltz added explanations, footnotes (on language, history, geography, flora and fauna and other addenda) as well as summaries of legal decisions (halacha) that derive from the discussions in the Talmud itself These expositions upset many of his more cautious, ultra-Orthodox colleagues who publicly excommunicated the work, though not the man himself.

Not that his work is meant to be the final word: "Quite the contrary," he says. "The essence of the Talmud is an ongoing dialectic, it was never meant to be a closed book." There are wide margins provided for the student to insert his or her own comments.

For Steinsaltz, the Babylonian Talmud characterises Judaism, it is "the central column of Jewish civilization," he declares. But surely, I asked him, it was only studied by a small elite. That, he argues, doesn't explain its impact. "I was in China," he recalls, "and I met a professor there. He didn't know much about Judaism but he was amazed that this small people produced the likes of Marx, Freud and Einstein. I explained to him that though these thinkers were not religious, and indeed were products of the Enlightenment, they carried with them the influence of the Talmud and its thought processes. Each in their own way was looking for one guiding principle which would explain everything. That's very Talmudic. In fact the idea that there is one principle behind the universe originates with the Jewish people. No one else had this."

Nevertheless it seemed a stretch to say that this multi-volume work has seeped into every Jew's way of life. He begs to differ. "How many British play football?" he asks rhetorically, before answering his own question: "A tiny percentage. Yet everyone knows that football is part of the British character, part of the essence of who you are if you're British. Similarly with we Jews. Even if we don't know Talmud as such, its style of dialectical reasoning, and penetrating questions has come to characterise the Jews as a civilisation." Was this the reason that Israel was so miserable at football? I asked. He sucks on his pipe and his eyes twinkle over his hirsute face: "The British don't seem to be doing too well either," he says, smiling.

The celebrations will include a talk by the rabbi which will be broadcasted live via satellite to 245 Jewish communities in 55 countries. In it Rabbi Steinsaltz will encourage studies throughout the Jewish world. "Our main problem today," he summarises "is survival. And how can we survive without this text?"

Beyond the religious community, too, the Steinsaltz Talmud has had a major impact, in Israel and beyond. Dr Ruth Kalderon created two centres – in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem – where secular Israelis like herself discuss this book just as they would in a regular yeshiva. "This book changed my life," says Kalderon unashamedly. "Whatever I learned for my doctorate in Talmud doesn't compare with the experience of studying Rabbi Steinsaltz's text. The text is so fresh and alive, it's as if I am studying directly with him. Because of him a whole generation has been able to access their tradition directly from the source. Many of the hundreds of people that pass through our centres are artists, and many of their works now incorporate images and concepts from the Talmud, something unthinkable 20 years ago. Similarly when I lecture at Israel's National Film School, for example, and quote texts from the Talmud, it's no longer considered abnormal. Rabbi Steinsaltz has made this language part of the national discourse."