Guest Post: Values Do Not Reside Inside Books – Thoughts On The Global Day Of Jewish Learning

Rabbi Steinsaltz’s accomplishment is a huge step forward toward the democratization of Jewish textual study and deserves universal celebration.

Values Do Not Reside Inside Texts
Some Thoughts on the Global Day of Jewish Learning
Moses L. Pava • Special to FailedMessiah.com

On Sunday, November 7, 2010 Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz will complete his translation and commentary on the Talmud. To celebrate the completion of this monumental task, Jewish communities around the world will participate in a Global Day of Jewish Learning.

Rabbi Steinsaltz’s accomplishment is a huge step forward toward the democratization of Jewish textual study and deserves universal celebration. His straight-forward translation and relatively simple commentary have unlocked what to most Jews, until now, has been an esoteric and mysterious set of ancient and forbidding volumes, written in a long-dead language, using a seemingly impenetrable literary style. His translation is like a bridge connecting us to a fantastic land that we have only heard about in rumors, until now.

Steinsaltz’s is not without his detractors. Some, on the far right, have criticized his project on various grounds, including complaints about changing the traditional format or look of a Talmudic page, by placing his own commentary in Rashi’s traditional spot. "That may seem a mere format quibble, but it may have struck some as misguided," said Rabbi Avi Shafran, spokesman for the Orthodox Agudath Israel of America.

Perhaps some in the haredi world and others are worried, however, about an even deeper, if usually unstated, problem, beyond issues of mere format. In making the text of the Talmud more accessible than ever to everyone, Steinsaltz is, in essence, challenging the strict, hierarchical and top-down structure of Yeshiva education. Like a magician who tells you how the illusion is performed, Steinsaltz is lessening the mystery and confusion surrounding the meaning of the Talmud.

Rabbi Steinsaltz has recently defended his decision to translate the Talmud by emphasizing that the “Talmud is the central pillar of Jewish knowledge,” but it is a “book that Jews cannot understand.” And this, he says, “is a dangerous situation, like a collective amnesia. I tried to make pathways through which people will be able to enter the Talmud without encountering impassable barriers. It’s something that will always be a challenge, but I tried to make it at least possible."

While I wholeheartedly applaud Rabbi Steinsaltz’s incredible accomplishment for many different reasons, not the least of which is the fact that I have personally benefitted on many occasions from using his translation, I, too, harbor a serious concern.

Don’t get me wrong here. Unlike my haredi brethren, I believe that it is almost always the case that more transparency is better than less transparency. To the extent that this new translation succeeds in opening up the Talmud to more readers, this is all for the good. To the extent that this work makes the Talmud a “live option” to contemporary spiritual seekers, instead of a “dead choice,” Rabbi Steinsaltz will be remembered in the future as a Jewish hero of the first rank.

With all of this emphasis being placed on a new translation of the Talmud, though, my concern is that we will forget the simple fact that authentic Jewish values do not reside inside Jewish texts. Jewish values are the beliefs, ideals, and aspirations used by today’s Jews...I mean really used... in order to make decisions in our daily lives.

Values, if they are to be meaningful at all, are always values-in-use. If Jewish values reside anywhere at all, they reside in our innumerable conversations with one another, in the contemporary Jewish institutions we build together, and in the human confrontations and continuous struggles between student and text. Jewish values are always those values which emerge from the ongoing and changing relationship between the Jewish people and its inherited tradition.

No text and no translation, no matter how simple and straight-forward, provide their own interpretation. As readers, we are always like the blind Isaac, standing opposite his unknown son, who says, upon touching him, “The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau” (Genesis 27:22). Nevertheless, Isaac must choose to whom to give his blessing.
Isaac must recognize that in making his choice, even in the face of grave doubt and real uncertainty, he is expressing a set of values, as he must, that will profoundly affect his family’s future history, and in turn, world history, as well.

Isaac is often portrayed as a mere transmitter of tradition from his father Abraham to his son Jacob. But this reading misses the point of this story entirely. In choosing Jacob over Esau, Isaac is not just echoing Abraham, but he is finally giving voice to his own ultimate human values and aspirations.

We, today, like blind Isaac, must recognize our own unique role in reading and understanding texts, be they Biblical, Talmudic, or even today’s commentaries. In the end, we are always left with some version of Isaac’s ambiguous reality, “the voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau.”

If we use Rabbi Steinsaltz’s new translation of the Talmud (or any translation for that matter) as the final word on matters Talmudic, we are in deep trouble. If we use the new translation as an excuse to hide out in the house of study, we are in deep trouble. Finally, if we use the new translation as an excuse to hide from ourselves, we are in deep trouble.

On the other hand, to the extent that we use Rabbi Steinsaltz’s unique gift to the Jewish people and the world as an opportunity to better confront our heritage and our tradition in order to clarify and express our own values and aspirations to lead meaningful and moral lives in community, we are moving along in the right direction.

In light of the many ethical failures in the Jewish community in the last few years including business failures on an unprecedented scale, political escapades both here and in Israel, and sexual improprieties (to put it way too mildly), it is time to refocus our communal energies on Jewish ethics and values. If we think we can look up these values in a kind of ethics encyclopedia or even a code of law, though, we are still missing the point.

According to some commentators, Jacob purposely invoked God’s name in answer to Isaac’s question in order to reveal his identity to his father, despite his masquerading in Esau’s furs. Rabbi Yochanan, in a midrash, likens Jacob’s action to a raven bringing fire into his own nest. This is a strange and seemingly destructive image. Why would anyone set their own nest on fire? But, perhaps this was precisely the kind of passionate jolt that Isaac needed to wake him up and to help him finally recognize the worth of his son Jacob. Perhaps Rabbi Steinsaltz is also bringing fire into the nest by placing his own commentary in Rashi’s traditional spot and challenging the traditional hierarchy. But, maybe, this is just what the doctor ordered.

Moses L. Pava is the Alvin Einbender Professor of Business Ethics at Yeshiva University where he has taught for the past 22 years.

Comments

[Garnel Ironheart]

Jewish conversations do not start or end with the Talmud but the Talmud gives us what to talk about.

[shimon]

Still waiting for someone to make the Talmud interesting hasn't happened yet.

[Shlomo]

Rabbi Steinsaltz’s hebrew translation (and explanation in simple hebrew)of the talmud is available essentially free inside Dvar Malchut (which is an Israeli Chabad free publication widely and freely available around the world) in a Daf Yomi format.
Not everything needs to be about money

[the usual chaim]

you have to pay for dvar malchut

... this whole conversation about the layout of the text is so stupid. who gives a shit? all the same material is still there on the non-translated side of the page! the translation side of artscroll doesnt have rashi or tosafot either. its just the translation. the only difference is that in steinzaltz his commentary on the translated side is both to the side of the text and below it while the artscrolls only have commentary below.

personally i think artscroll takes away from the learning because they overwhelm you with information rather than just letting you take in the text as is. i especially object to their take on aggadic material because it is totally a spin. spin/interpretation is fine unto itself, but for an instructional text the aim should not be on imposing a specific reading but on enabling the reader to deal with the material independently.

steinzalts is more sparse and for this i prefer it.

[Yochanan Lavie]

I prefer Steinsaltz for going into the etymology of the Greek, Latin, and Persian loan words, and other such insights.

[Adam Neira]

The Pentateuch is the primary book. The Tanach is the secondary one. The Talmud is interpretation and commentary. In journalism I prefer reading the facts. I can interpret what is happening based on my life experience and prayer. Opinion pieces have their place but without the facts they are amorphous. Like cotton candy without the stick.

Abraham was righteous before the commandments were given. Children have an internal moral compass that only goes haywire and becomes calcified when they are subject to repeated traumatic conditioning. Adults forget what is right and wrong and need to be reminded. Some adults that will not repent need to be stopped. If this involves killing them so be it. So values do not reside inside books, but books can help people wake up.

[Chicago Sam]

Frankly, I really did not care much for the writer's reticence to embrace Steinzaltz whole-heartedly. Steinzaltz is the Rashi of our generation; he has taken a difficult and often arcane text and has attempted to show its historical context. Since Haredim hate any historical approach to making sense out of the Talmud, they find Steinzaltz threatening.

I personally love Steinzaltz's brilliant work; his footnotes and insights are lucid and yet very concise--the mark of a truly great commentator.

Artscroll has its value, but it sometimes perpetrates silly interpretations from the Rishonim that really do not amplify the text much. On other occasions, it adds spin to the text that is not warranted by the peshat.

It is much less cohesive than the Steinzaltz, but it does give a decent synopsis of the Rishonim, Rashi and Tosfot. As a whole, I prefer the Hebrew Artscroll to the English, for the English really does not have the feel of a sefer, but the Hebrew edition does.

I look forward to Steinzaltz's work on the JT. Yagdil Torah V'Yadir...

[Adam Neira]

Everyone learns in different ways. The multiple layers to the Tanach are great. A good teacher will try and shift the consciousness of the student in some way. The landscapes of the Redemption are fascinating. Reading requires focus and effort. A distracted world of short attention spans turns away from weighty tomes. Lindsay Lohan's memoirs still sell a thousand times more than Guide for the Perplexed, but there is a massive and rapid shift going on.

[Chicago Sam]

And, as we know Adam, shift really happens...

[AsimovRules]

Nu technically this "edition" should be called what it is....an English translation of a written record (in Aramaic) of an orally transmitted message from a UFO encounter with an alien called Yahweh.

Sounds kinda dumb without the usual euphemisms.

[unProfessor]

Idiotic article.

[Mike Doyle]

Jewish values don't reside in Jewish texts? So, what, we created and according to this post continue to create them out of thin air? That sounds a lot like a relative ethics, which seems to me to entirely miss the point of monotheism, or of having basic texts at all.

[IH]

Despite Adam Neira's Christian theology, Jewish values do indeed reside in Jewish texts.

Leon Wieseltier captures this brilliantly in "Kaddish" describing the legend (from 11th century Machzor Vitry) about Rabbi Akiva teaching the (heathen) son to pray as a Jew. He writes:

“Akiva taught the condemned man's son not for intrinsic reasons, but for extrinsic reasons. Somebody else needed that the son should know these things. Somebody else was counting on it. This motive for study is often overlooked. Knowledge is not only for oneself, it is also for others; not only for the satisfaction of one's own thirsts, but also for the fulfillment of one's obligations to others, whose occasions require the interventions of tradition. The great unlettered Jewish community of America could use a couple of million encounters with Akiva. Or do they expect their children to save them? Their children, who will inherit an ignorance of Jewish tradition unprecedented in Jewish history?”

[Yosef ben Matitya]

Dvar Malchut (which is an Israeli Chabad free publication widely and freely available around the world)?!

this so called dvar malchus, is a heretic sabbatean publication. hashem yishmor!

[Adam Neira]

To IH,

Couldn't reply to you because of shabbat. Had a very interesting one, by the way.

I am not a Christian so your little slur is water off a ducks back. Quack, quack. I do believe Jesus existed however. Jewish values ARE expressed in texts, however every human being is born with a central locus of control and moral centre. Every child is born pure, innocent and free. Violence is not innate. Every child knows they are a sovereign being of G-d. This awareness can erode to almost nil if traumatic conditioning takes place and calcification of the true self sets in.

The perfect model for humankind is messianic anarchism, i.e. Self-governing entities of G-d at play in Ganeden. Unfortunately we are not there yet, so a command structure, teachers, texts and guidance are required

[Dan Ostroff]

Values don't reside in the text?! A word, whether written or spoken is the substantiation of an idea, turning a thought in a concrete entity enabling us to transmit it. Of course values lies in text, in words, but most of all in actions. But the actions are motivated either by other other actions or by the power of the word. Again, we return to the text.

Translations illuminate but also obfuscate - they often flatten out the subtleties of the original language. Any translation is interpretation. R. Steinsaltz has done a remarkable job, but it is no true substitute for understanding the original material.

Prof. Pava has a penchant for the personal interpretation as opposed to respecting the complexity and richness of the original text.

Yes, the text contains values.