Reading 'Epistle to Yemen' in Moscow

Abstract

In early 1989, I spent seven extraordinary weeks teaching at the inaugural mini-semester of the Steinsaltz yeshiva in Moscow, the first such institution to be granted government recognition since the Communist revolution. The students consisted largely of refuseniks who had risked careers and livelihoods to commit themselves to Jewish learning and observance. In addition to the study of Talmud, Bible and more, there was a slot twice a week for Jewish Thought. I decided that the text I would teach would be Maimonides’ Epistle to Yemen, a work directed to a beleaguered Jewish community pressured to abandon its faith. It was as if Maimonides had composed the work for the students in that yeshiva. The greatest challenge in teaching the Epistle to Yemen in that environment was to read the words without shedding tears....¶This project, which one Moscow resident told me had transformed Jewish life in Moscow in a few weeks, would have served in almost all instances as a crowning achievement for even the most impressive of Jewish leaders. The fact that it has largely disappeared into the recesses of Rabbi Steinsaltz’s remarkable resume is testimony to a record of stunning achievement