Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz, Torah scholar, longtime educator, prolific author and one of the greatest commentators on Judaism of his generation, died Aug. 7 in Jerusalem. He was 83.

The Jerusalem Post reported the cause of death was acute pneumonia. He had been hospitalized since Aug. 4 due to a lung infection.

Steinsaltz, perhaps best known for his groundbreaking commentary of the Babylonian Talmud, which is credited with making the ancient Jewish texts more accessible, was buried on the Mount of Olives. Hundreds of family members, colleagues and students stood in the heat and Chasidic nigunim (melodies) following the burial.

My husband, Yaakov, and I had the privilege of working for him, and my husband also studied under him.

Once in a generation is there a project so expansive, so extraordinary, that it revolutionizes Jewish scholarship for hundreds of thousands perhaps millions of people, and for future generations. Steinsaltz is perhaps best known for his seminal Babylonian Talmud, and as the lyrics of the Haggadah song Dayenu say, That would have been enough for us.

He also produced commentaries on the Tanakh, the Mishnah, the Mishneh Torah and Tanya. All of these now are available to scholars and lay people and, in the future, they will become accessible digitally.

Two years ago, a dinner was held in Jerusalem in honor of Steinsaltzs 80th birthday. The eclectic collection of guests, like those who attended his funeral (streamed live on Facebook), varied in age and appeared diverse in religious style. This reflected Steinsaltzs greatest achievement: To be a giant whose intellect could reach the stars yet communicate and interpret the treasures of the Torah to those below, who are as numerous as the sands of the Earth.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the former chief rabbi of the United Congregations of the Commonwealth of Britain, was a keynote speaker at Steinsaltzs dinner. He said, He was trained as a scientist but has the soul of a poet. He was brought up by very secular parents. Adin told me that his parents insisted that he learn Gemara because they wanted him to be an apikoros (heretic), not an amaretz (ignoramus) . With his creative genius, he has taken the most complex texts and turned them into the simplest messages. Sacks quoted the verse in Isaiah, Vekol baneich limudi HaShem And all your children shall learn of God, and noted how there have been attempts to create egalitarianism in wealth and in power and they have failed, but that Steinsaltz has dedicated his life to creating something egalitarian by opening the doors of study to everyone.

According to Rabbi Meni Even-Israel, Steisaltzs son and executive director of the Steinsaltz Center, which continues his work, Steinsaltz became Torah observant when he was 16. He studied chemistry and physics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem but he spent most of his time on Jewish studies and spent many hours with Rabbi Shmaryahu Sasonkin and the late Rabbi Shlomo Zavin. He also studied for a brief time at the Chabad Yeshiva in Lod, Israel, and published essays, gave lectures and conducted educational activities for teens.

In 1965, Steinsaltz married his wife, Sara. He opened a small hesder yeshiva where students divide their time between study and military service and founded the Israel Institute of Talmudic Publications in Jerusalem in cooperation with the Prime Ministers Office and the Ministry of Education and Culture. With that, he began his lifes work: Translating the Talmud from its original Aramaic into modern Hebrew, and adding a commentary that a layperson could understand. He was only 28. This isnt as surprising as one might think because at 24, he had been appointed the youngest school principal in Israel, at a school in the Negev.

Although the small yeshiva couldnt sustain itself beyond the first year, it was a microcosm of things to come. My husband who was one of the six students, recalled, The highlight was the seudat shlishit (the third Sabbath meal) that we had at the home of the Rav every week. The singing, his inspirational stories, the atmosphere this was what made the yeshiva special. teinsaltz went gone on to found a plethora of educational institutions, and that special atmosphere permeates them all.

The work of a lifetimeSteinsaltz expected to complete his Talmud project within 13 years. It took 45. The first volume was published less than a year after opening the center. It was followed by 40 additional volumes and the project was completed in December 2010. The English version is titled The Essential Talmud.In 1991, he changed his last name to Even-Israel under the guidance of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, with whom he became very close, but retained his given name. In 1988, Steinsaltz was awarded the Israel Prize, considered the nations highest cultural honor, along with many other prestigious prizes.

The Steinsaltz Hebrew Talmud received endorsements from several great rabbis including Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the Admor of Erlau.

While working on the Talmud project over those 45 years, Steinsaltz also published more than 60 books, numerous essays, recorded video classes and taught and lectured throughout the world. He established a network of educational institutions for the Jewish community in the former Soviet Union, including the first yeshiva formally acknowledged by the authorities (in 1989, before the fall of the Soviet Union), a Jewish university and a training school for preschool and elementary school teachers.

Steinsaltz also established other schools that are inspired by his worldview, including an army yeshiva (Yeshivat Hesder) in Tekoa, Israel, and the Makor Chaim elementary, middle and high schools in and near Jerusalem. Sadly, the Makor Chaim high school yeshiva in Kfar Etzion became well known when two of the three teenage boys who attended that yeshiva were kidnapped and killed by terrorists in 2014. (One of them, Naftali Fraenkel, was my student.)

But the yeshiva has morphed its tragedy into days of unity, in which the yeshiva sends students to secular schools in Israel to interact and create dialogue. During the seven years I taught at Makor Chaim, I discovered it was a high school yeshiva with out-of-the-box thinking and an atmosphere of curiosity, creativity and joy.

By 1976, Steinsaltz also had created the Shefa Institute, comprising an elite group of students who would study, write pedagogical materials and teach educational programs for adults creating a new dialogue with Jewish texts. My husband was one of the researchers, and Steinsaltz hired me to help produce Shefas adult educational activities.

I vividly remember meeting with him in his private office in the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute. It is written in Talmud Succa 21:2, Even the prosaic conversations [sihat hulin] of wise men are equal to the entire Torah. And indeed, even Steinsaltzs comments on prosaic matters were filled with rich philosophical insights and colorful anecdotes. It was a privilege just to sit quietly and listen while he expounded on educational issues and Israeli society, by way of introduction to the next project. The benefit of this close contact gave us a rare opportunity to know Steinsaltz when he was much younger, and even then, a visionary and dreamer.

Yehudit Shabta, an editor and translator, worked for Steinsaltz from 1989. She tells the following story to illustrate his worldview: When our daughter was a year old, we brought her to the Rav for a bracha (blessing). He said to the child, I bless you that your parents will not get in the way of your growth.

Anat Zalmanson-Kuznetsov, filmmaker and daughter of Sylva Zalmanson, one of the 12 Soviet Jews who tried to escape the USSR in 1970 by hijacking a plane and was imprisoned for years, wrote in a public Facebook post on Aug. 7 about her experience with Steinsaltz. She was 16 and rebellious. Everyone had advised her mother to be tough on her. Zalmanson took her daughter to Steinsaltz and he had one piece of advice: Only love.

We have many books by Steinsaltz in our home that have informed our teaching on Talmud, Chassidut, Tanakh, Jewish mysticism and more. One of my favorites is a little book that I consult when authoring a new biblical musical Biblical Images: Men & Women of the Book, which always enchants with refreshing and deep insights on biblical figures central to our national shared consciousness.

Am Yisrael has lost a Torah giant. His wisdom and his smile, which lit up the world, now will continue to glow through his students and the works he left behind.

Toby Klein Greenwald is an award-winning playwright and director of biblical musicals for Raise Your Spirits Theatre.

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The Life and Legacy of Torah Scholar and Prolific Author Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz - Jewish Journal