When Rabbi Adin Ibn Israel Steinzaltz was once asked on the radio, who he is and to which religious and political camp he belongs, he replied: "Either I am too big to fit into these boxes, or I am too small and fall between the cracks. Judge you, but putting me in a box - you will not succeed." He was an expounder of the Talmud and winner of the Israel Prize, a rabbi and commentator, an intellectual and a thinker, but beyond all that he was a multi-faceted man full of charm. Wisdom and simplicity, bright cleverness and romantic optimism, overwhelming religiosity and a sharp sense of humor, deep faith and endless curiosity - all these were all in one fell swoop in this man. In a good story that begins in the middle, the rabbi's student, Yoel Spitz, opens a window into the inner and unknown world of one of the fascinating figures who ever walked the Israeli cultural landscape. As someone who met Rabbi Steinzalz as a teenager and accompanied him over the years as an adult, Mitiv Spitz mediates to the general public the meetings, advice and spiritual conversations he had. Life-changing insights are revealed in the many stories in the book with openness, honesty and a smile, and allow even those who did not know Rabbi Steinsaltz to enjoy his wisdom and personality. Yoel Spitz is an educator and social activist, a teacher and educator at Keshet School in Jerusalem, which combines religious and secular schools, the director of the Pedagogical Institute at the Steinsalt Center and a doctoral student in the philosophy of education at the Hebrew University.
