Simple Words: Thinking About What Really Matters in Life

Defining Ourselves

Friends, family, love. God, death, faith. These, and others, are deceptively simple words that we use all the time. Do we know what we mean by these important words? Do we know what other people mean when they use them? We seldom pause to reflect on these words or to make sure that we understand them, yet we continue to use them, so we misunderstand others and they misunderstand us.

Adin Steinsaltz examines some of the meanings of these powerful words. He transforms each word into a gem, turning it this way, then that, examining it to see more clearly its brilliant facets and what lies beyond them. He challenges us to think deeply about the connotations of these commonplace words, and in so doing, to see that there may be other ways of looking at things that we have taken for granted in our lives. Simple Words is a thought-provoking -- and surprising -- adventure that may change the way we think, speak, and act.

Adin Steinsaltz is internationally regarded as one of the leading scholars and rabbis of the modern era. His well-known multivolume translation and commentary to the Talmud is currently being published in Hebrew, English, and other languages. He has been a resident scholar at academic institutions in Europe and the United States, among them Yale University and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and is a recipient of the Israel Prize.