Home  Principles & Statements  Positions of the ACJ  Articles  DonationsAbout Us  Contact Us  Links                                         

Steinsaltz Urges American Jews to “Find the Holy in the New” and Keep Judaism Vibrant

Allan C. Brownfeld, Editor
Special Interest Report
July - August 2005

Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, who has drawn widespread acclaim for his interpretation, commentaries and translations of the Babylonian Talmud, sounded a note of caution about the future of Judaism in America at a talk in Washington, D.C. in June.  


 
According to Washington Jewish Week (June 30, 2005), Steinsaltz said that, “If we rely on anti-semitism to maintain us, it is not a reliable help.” Nor can Israel’s existence preserve Jewish life in America. “You cannot live, like so many American Jews are led to believe, a vicarious life.”  


 
Keeping Judaism vibrant paradoxically means, in the view of this Orthodox and Chasidic thinker, to “find the holy in the new.” He declared: “The urge for renewal is important because I cannot live on tradition and keeping the memories of my parents. I have to have my own personal encounter with the divine.”  


 
Steinsaltz, whose latest book is We Jews: Who Are We and What Should We Do? (Jossey-Bass, 2005), participated in a meeting at the Washington, D.C. Jewish Community Center which involved a conversation with veteran broadcaster Ted Koppel.  


 
Koppel pressed Steinsaltz about his book’s thesis that Jews, as a group, have some distinctive traits. These qualities, said the rabbi, are “deeply cultural” and may stem in part from “100 generations of selective breeding” that favored Jews who had a certaIn stubbornness, enabling them to maintain their faith in the face of adversity. The Jewish people, he said, also “suffer from a Messiah complex ... Jews, especially when they are young, have a feeling that they have a mission to save the world.”  


 
On the theological side, asked by an audience member to describe God, Steinsaltz told his own advice to a student who teaches preschool. In speaking of the divine, he urged highlighting “the infinity of God” and “God is anywhere and everywhere.”  


 
Fielding a question on the seeming conflict between prayers of petition and free will, Steinsaltz spoke about the ultimate mystery of God’s response to human beings: “We have, all of us, whether we are great believers or small believers, we have complaints about God. If I get any answer that I understand and am satisfied with, surely it is not the right answer.”  



< return to article list
© 2010 The American Council For Judaism.