Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz (11 July 1937[citation needed] – 7 August 2020) was an Israeli Chabad Chasidic rabbi, teacher, philosopher, social critic, and publisher.
His Steinsaltz edition of the Talmud was originally published in modern Hebrew, with a running commentary to facilitate learning, and has also been translated into English,[1] French, Russian, and Spanish. Beginning in 1989, Steinsaltz published several tractates in Hebrew and English of the Babylonian (Bavli) Talmud in an English-Hebrew edition. The first volume of a new English-Hebrew edition, the Koren Talmud Bavli, was released in May 2012,[2] and has since been brought to completion.
Steinsaltz was a recipient of the Israel Prize for Jewish Studies (1988), the President’s Medal (2012), and the Yakir Yerushalayim prize (2017).
[via Wikipedia]
A Tribute written by Rabbi Johnathon Saks:
Harav Adin Steinsaltz zt’l who has passed away was the Rashi of our generation. His commentaries made texts, especially the Talmud Bavli, accessible to millions for whom they had been a closed book before.
He was a unique figure, whose knowledge seemed to cover every field and whose insights were often poetical, unexpected and profound. So formidable were his gifts that already as a young man he gave a weekly shiur to the President of Israel, and he had an unrivalled ability to convey religious truths even to very secular people.
He was imaginative, humorous, unconventional but deeply spiritual. He was unique and we are now an orphaned generation.
Baruch Dayan Ha-emet.
