"Better an Apikores Than an Am Haaretz": Rav Meni Even-Israel on Rav Steinsaltz's Vision (292)

May 25, 2026

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"Better an Apikores Than an Am Haaretz": Rav Meni Even-Israel on Rav Steinsaltz's Vision

Rav Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz, whom Time magazine called a "once-in-a-millennium scholar," is best known for making the Talmud accessible through translation and commentary. But according to his son Rav Meni Even-Israel, that project was only the surface of a much deeper vision: cultivating Jews who are intellectually serious, spiritually alive, and unafraid of complexity. The guiding principle, Rav Meni explains, came from a family maxim: "Better to be an apikores than an am ha'aretz"—better to be a heretic than an ignoramus. This was not an endorsement of heresy, but a conviction that ignorance is the greater danger.

The Priority of Knowledge Over Conformity

Rav Steinsaltz believed that Torah should produce people who know their own tradition deeply and feel comfortable in it—precisely so they can engage the broader world without fear. "Read your own text first and feel comfortable that this is our text," Rav Meni recalls his father saying. "Once you feel comfortable in your own world, the other world doesn't bother you." This meant there were no prohibited texts, no muktsa categories. Everything—Jewish and non-Jewish, secular and sacred—was worth reading to understand why Judaism matters.

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What you'll learn

1 (06:33) **Core Mission: "Better to be an Apikores than an Am Haaretz"** - Rav Meni defines his father’s central goal: cultivating intellectually serious Jews who are knowledgeable, curious, and unafraid of any text.
2 (08:47) **A Warning on Intellectual Fragility** - Rav Meni clarifies that Rav Steinsaltz’s openness to all texts came with a crucial prerequisite: first master your own tradition to avoid being destabilized.
3 (13:55) **A Corrective Against a "Boxy" Judaism** - The guest describes Rav Steinsaltz’s concern that Judaism was becoming narrow and conformist, and how his entire project was a response to that.
4 (16:35) **Balancing Independence and Rebbe Authority** - The conversation explores the tension between Rav Steinsaltz’s fierce intellectual independence and his total submission to the Lubavitcher Rebbe.
5 (21:28) **The Name Change: A Case Study in Obedience** - Rav Meni recounts the story of how the Rebbe instructed his father to change his family name from Steinsaltz to Even-Israel.
6 (24:22) **The Medical Crisis: Rationalism vs. Mystical Trust** - Rav Meni shares his personal story of battling cancer as a teenager, illustrating how his father navigated conflicting medical opinions and the Rebbe’s directive.
7 (30:17) **Reconciling Rationalism and Mysticism** - The discussion turns to how Rav Steinsaltz harmonized the rationalism of the Rambam with deep Kabbalistic and Chassidic thought.

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Show Notes

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Most people know Rav Adin Steinsaltz as the scholar who transformed access to the Talmud. But beneath the translations, commentaries, and publishing projects was a much larger, richer, and more complicated vision of Judaism itself.

In this episode, I speak with Rav Meni Even-Israel, Rav Steinsaltz's son and the director of the Steinsaltz Center, about the worldview that animated his father's life and work.

Rav Steinsaltz believed Torah should produce intellectually serious, spiritually alive, deeply curious human beings who were unafraid of complexity, unafraid of difficult questions, and unafraid of the broader world. He resisted a Judaism that was narrow, insulated, or intellectually fragile. At the same time, he was deeply committed to tradition, profoundly shaped by Chassidut, and fiercely loyal to the Lubavitcher Rebbe.

That creates a fascinating tension running through this conversation. How did someone so intellectually independent accept the authority of a rebbe? How did he reconcile Rambam-style rationalism with deep immersion in mysticism? Why did he believe broad knowledge and curiosity were religious necessities rather than spiritual threats? And what happens to a Torah revolution when the revolutionary himself is gone?

One especially revealing part of our discussion centers on Rav Meni's own battle with cancer as a teenager, and the way Rav Steinsaltz navigated medical expertise alongside the guidance of the Rebbe. The story captures something essential about him: he was neither blindly submissive nor dismissively skeptical; instead, he attempted to hold together scientific judgment, spiritual intuition, and religious trust without compromising or undermining any one of them.

We also discuss Rav Steinsaltz's belief that Judaism should never become boxed in or one-dimensional, but should instead cultivate curiosity, intellectual depth, spirituality, and genuine personal ownership of Torah.

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