FIU to welcome leading rabbi and scholar

As part of FIU’s yearlong commitment to publicly exploring issues of spirituality, the University is hosting a lecture by the internationally renowned Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz on Tues., Jan. 18, at the Biscayne Bay Campus. Free tickets to the event have been distributed and are no longer available. A webcast of the lecture will be available the next day, Jan. 19, at www.fiu.edu/docs/web_cast.htm

Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

Steinsaltz is considered one of the world’s leading Jewish scholars. He is the author of 58 books, most notably the Steinsaltz Talmud, a groundbreaking translation and interpretation of the Babylonian Talmud.

"He is arguably the most respected rabbi in the world today," says Religious Studies Prof. Nathan Katz, director of the Center for the Study of Spirituality. "He is a monumental scholar."

Steinsaltz’s pioneering efforts in Russia include the founding of the Jewish University of Moscow and the Jewish University of St. Petersburg. These educational centers, the first degree-granting institutions of Jewish studies ever established in the former Soviet Union, provide Hebrew language instruction and classes on Jewish life, history, and philosophy to thousands of Russian Jews. Steinsaltz teaches at Mayanot Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem.

FIU will confer an honorary degree upon the rabbi prior to his address, “The Life of the Mind,” which is part of the 2005 Presidential Lecture Series.

Earlier during the academic year, FIU welcomed His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet and Indian spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, both of whom delivered lectures at University Park.