The Essential Talmud : Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

The Essential Talmud is a masterful introduction by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz to the great repository of Jewish wisdom, the Talmud. A book of profound scholarship and concise pedagogy, The Essential Talmud succinctly describes the Talmud’s history, structure, and methodology. It summarizes the Talmud’s main principles, demonstrates its contemporary relevance, and captures the spirit of this unique and paradoxical sacred text as a human expression of divine law.

Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
Scholar, philosopher, spiritual mentor Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz has been on a life-long mission to popularize the study of the Talmud, Judaism’s central text of law, ethics, customs, and history, the repository of thousands of years of Jewish wisdom. Rabbi Steinsaltz views Talmud study as an essential component of Jewish survival: “The entire edifice of Jewish culture is bound up in the Talmud…any place where the Talmud is lacking is not only lacking knowledge, but a central and vital component.”