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The Strife of the Spirit
The Strife of the Spirit explores such fundamental themes as the nature of the human soul, the path of the penitent, and the relationship between student and text. Rabbi Steinsaltz moves comfortably and effectively between essays and oral discourses, interviews and stories.
259 pages, Paperback
First published July 7, 1977
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16 people want to read
About the author
Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz
338 books61 followersRabbi Adin Steinsaltz (Hebrew: עדין שטיינזלץ) or Adin Even Yisrael (Hebrew: עדין אבן ישראל) is internationally regarded as one of the leading rabbis of this century. The author of many books, he is best known for his monumental translation of and commentary on the Talmud. Rabbi Steinsaltz founded the Israel Institute for Talmudic Publications. Under its aegis, he has published to date 58 books on the Talmud, Jewish mysticism, religious thought, sociology, historical biography, and philosophy. He teaches at Mayanot in Jerusalem. In 1988, he was awarded the Israel Prize, Israel's highest honor. He has received honorary Ph.D. degrees from Yeshiva University, Bar Ilan University, and Ben Gurion University.
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July 19, 2025
Most books about spiritual growth promise peace or self-acceptance. This one promises struggle and does not apologize for it. Steinsaltz is blunt: “Spiritual entropy is real. Everything decays unless it is renewed.” He makes clear that the true enemy of the soul is not catastrophe, but the slow rot of indifference and comfort.
Throughout the book, Steinsaltz refuses false optimism. “The evil inclination is not a monstrous force. It is the tendency to settle, to drift, to lose vigilance.” He is not interested in your feelings. He is interested in your willingness to wake up, every day, and fight. Habit, he writes, is “the dulling of purpose” and “the greatest threat to holiness.”
What sets this book apart is its total lack of self-congratulation. “No one can say, I am finished. There is no arrival.” The reader gets no escape route, no easy justification for spiritual laziness. The only comfort is honesty and the insistence on movement. “To be alive is to strive, to know that defeat is always possible and that surrender is a daily temptation.”
This book will make you uneasy if you want reassurance. If you want the truth about spiritual life, you will not find a clearer or more ruthless companion. Read it if you value struggle over comfort. Five stars for a work that has no patience for self-deception.
***********
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CH1
Peace of mind is often exalted as a supreme ideal, something not merely valuable but an end in itself. Stress is demonized—not just harmful but cast as morally suspect.
And yet, this unquestioning reverence for peace of mind warrants scrutiny. What does peace of mind actually mean, and where does it belong in the hierarchy of human needs? The Jewish sages provide one compelling perspective in their discussion of the virtues of peace: “The Holy One, blessed be He, found no vessel but peace which could contain all blessing.” This is a striking statement, elevating peace to the status of a foundation for all good things. But it comes with an important distinction: peace is a vessel. While it has the potential to hold blessings, it can also remain empty—an empty vessel. Peace with no content, tranquillity without sanctity, rest without meaning—all are hollow.
This insight applies across contexts: international diplomacy, interpersonal relationships, and the soul’s inner life. A life stripped of pressure and anxiety might be calm but still utterly void of meaning. This is not what I want—not to live like a rat in a cage, avoiding pain but trapped in futility. Instead, I want to know that when stress comes, I can return to equilibrium. Not to an empty calm, but to a state where holiness, however fragile, persists and cannot be eradicated.
The uncritical apotheosis of peace of mind carries significant risks. It threatens to turn emptiness into a virtue, negating not just stress and pain but also achievement and vitality. The Torah’s words in Deuteronomy—“I have set before you life and good, death and evil” (30:15)—are rendered in Ecclesiastes with more brutal clarity: “Better a living dog than a dead lion” (9:4). Why? “For the living know that they shall die, while the dead know nothing at all” (9:5). As long as there is struggle, there is potential. Even the lowly, instinctive fight for survival is better than the stasis of death—the peace that holds nothing and leads nowhere.
This is why being “ill” was so intolerable for me. It was not the pain but the inertia, the absence of forward motion. The days bled into each other, indistinguishable. Whatever struggle I managed felt animalistic, stripped to the level of a dog’s effort to merely survive. There is a profound humiliation in this state—something most people are unprepared for and should not experience.
Here lies the problem with goals: not all of them are achieved through external action. Some demand inner struggle—conflict within the soul itself. This is where philosophy often falls short. Asking, “What do I value? Knowledge, truth, love, enlightenment?” feels hollow when those values cannot be realized through thought alone. They are forged in the crucible of tension and turmoil, not in the sterile arena of intellectual reflection.
The path of inner conflict is neither easy nor safe. Every step carries the risk of failure—of falling further than where you began. No spiritual ladder can be climbed without tension, anguish, and constant effort. Often, this battle plays out between competing values: comfort versus growth, the present versus the possible. But fundamentally, it is a fight between what is and what could be. The inertia of the existing world is a relentless enemy, and breaking free from it can feel like tearing through chains.
I’ve experienced this firsthand. It’s like reaching a level in a video game that I am completely unqualified for—ascending too fast, only to be thrown back down, far below where I started. This is the nature of spiritual struggle. Progress is precarious, failure is inevitable, but still, the fight must continue. To remain still, to idolize peace for its own sake, is the real loss. That is the empty vessel, devoid of blessing. The only peace worth striving for is the one forged through tension, sanctity, and struggle.
I don't say this to fetishize suffering in the way that so many of my fellow Russians have. I mean this in the sense that a certain restlessness is a good thing.
CH2: Soul Searching
CH3: Fate Destiny & Free will
Free will is not a binary. Framing it as one will only lead to confusion. If you're looking for a clearer treatment of the topic, I recommend Akiva Tatz’s work on free will, which addresses this with more depth. This section of The Strife of the Spirit doesn’t fully satisfy.
As an intellectual and philosophical problem, the tension between human freedom and environmental determinants falls into the category of Kant’s antinomies—problems that force us to accept two contradictory conclusions. Kant, with his characteristic rigor, developed an elaborate system to address this rationally. Long before him, however, Moses Maimonides tackled the same issue within the framework of Jewish law in his Mishneh Torah. In grappling with the apparent contradiction between divine omniscience and free will, Maimonides argues that this is not something human reason alone can resolve. It requires acknowledging the incomprehensible nature of divine omniscience and omnipotence.
Rabbi Baruch of Kossov, in his book Sod HaEmuna (The Secret of Faith), builds on this idea. He writes that man must accept the paradox of free will and divine providence simultaneously. He asserts that we should recognize our freedom of choice while also believing that the Creator’s hand guides us in those choices. However, if someone cannot hold both concepts together, he insists they prioritize belief in free will—essentially, choose the perspective that empowers action over passivity.
The sages expand on this with a nuanced insight: there are times when a person is spared from disaster not through their own foresight but through divine intervention. They describe thorns and snares lying in wait for every individual. Most are too small to be noticed until it’s too late, but divine providence sometimes shields a person, without altering the overall trajectory of their life. Yet, when it comes to larger, more catastrophic events—events that reshape nations or communities—human freedom to influence outcomes is far more limited.
This doesn’t negate the significance of small actions. Small choices accumulate, creating momentum that influences future events. Take the man who carelessly breaks his leg—his life doesn’t simply resume unchanged afterward. His injury, though seemingly minor, alters his relationship with subsequent events. Similarly, a person who chooses evil over good sets off a spiral where each later decision is shaped by the context created by earlier actions. What might be insignificant to one person becomes deeply consequential for another, depending on the choices they’ve already made.
In this view, free will operates within an inner, limited sphere—what Steinsaltz calls a “small, inner world.” Within this realm, human freedom can profoundly change the meaning and significance of events, even while the larger world remains unaffected.
Why this matters: Free will, as Steinsaltz presents it, is not about grandiose autonomy to shape the universe. It’s a smaller, subtler force—one that shapes the trajectory of our inner lives, even when the external world remains indifferent. This tension between the limits of human agency and the reality of divine providence isn’t meant to be resolved. It’s meant to be lived with. Choosing to act—knowing that the consequences may ripple far beyond our comprehension—is the essence of human freedom.
CH4: Human Holiness
Our sages said, “Six things were said about man: in regard to three, he is like the ministering angels, and in regard to three, he is like beasts.” Babylonian Talmud, Ĥagiga 16a
Although it is agreed by everyone that man is complex and that this is characteristic of him, there have been continuous attempts to define this multicolored compound in terms of some simple unity. True, the mere wish to find unity in multiplicity is by no means a negative wish. The basis of every kind of philosophical or scientific thinking is this uniting of many facts into principles. The attempt to find such central points about man is in itself positive, but it involves some danger; for after finding the focal point of man’s being, it is very natural to mistake one point for the whole.
A man cannot enter into such a closed circle of angelic religion. A perfect man has within himself a whole world – heaven and earth, the highest and the lowest – and is not compressed in the little space of such doubtful religion. Such a man cannot pray wholeheartedly, because the synagogue is too narrow for containing all his inner world. Making man an angel is creating a dry, petty, and partial being. A good example of this dryness and constraint can be found in many books on morals written during certain periods. However, these books, which are masterpieces in themselves, lack the elements of true humanism. The greatness of these books is lost because the average man, full of every human feeling, cannot relate such books to his life; they often do not even hint at certain moral questions. You could study a classic book on morals and not find anything about love, social relations, work, physical life, et cetera. True, these books are good books, but they are good only for that part of man engaged in religious issues. These books are textbooks for angels; they cannot teach people. It was this contraction of religion into purely religious problems that caused the freezing of every human emotion and led to conservatism and, to some extent, self-deception and hypocrisy, for, if all religious subjects were so detached from everyday life, they would become merely frozen conservative forms that did not have any true meaning for anyone.
The true Jewish way is that of human exaltation. From the Pentateuch to the Last Prophets, from the Talmud to the great rabbis of Hasidism, there is an attempt to deal with a whole man, a man in whom part of the wholeness is his being combined of body and soul, bad and good. All the duties of Judaism are for a man, a physical and restricted creature. And for this reason there are also certain laws that are only for the satisfaction of the bestial desires of man. That is not negative in any sense because, since man is imperfect, there must be a real relation to sin. “You must stoop to him if you want to elevate him.”
This way is not a necessary evil but an ideal way in itself. In a more general sense, the aim of man is not to do holy duties and to be an angel on earth. Man’s task is to “reveal God’s being in the lower world” – and this is done by elevating the base and low elements and exalting them.
And so man has not to elevate his soul, because it is already high without man’s efforts; his task is to elevate his body, his intellect, his desires. The human being is to give all his essence to God, but not by elevating his mind to higher subjects and converting his desires into a desire for God. The real way is higher: to find God in all these thoughts and desires, to be a whole man – but to a higher degree.
Throughout the book, Steinsaltz refuses false optimism. “The evil inclination is not a monstrous force. It is the tendency to settle, to drift, to lose vigilance.” He is not interested in your feelings. He is interested in your willingness to wake up, every day, and fight. Habit, he writes, is “the dulling of purpose” and “the greatest threat to holiness.”
What sets this book apart is its total lack of self-congratulation. “No one can say, I am finished. There is no arrival.” The reader gets no escape route, no easy justification for spiritual laziness. The only comfort is honesty and the insistence on movement. “To be alive is to strive, to know that defeat is always possible and that surrender is a daily temptation.”
This book will make you uneasy if you want reassurance. If you want the truth about spiritual life, you will not find a clearer or more ruthless companion. Read it if you value struggle over comfort. Five stars for a work that has no patience for self-deception.
***********
Ask ChatGPT
CH1
Peace of mind is often exalted as a supreme ideal, something not merely valuable but an end in itself. Stress is demonized—not just harmful but cast as morally suspect.
And yet, this unquestioning reverence for peace of mind warrants scrutiny. What does peace of mind actually mean, and where does it belong in the hierarchy of human needs? The Jewish sages provide one compelling perspective in their discussion of the virtues of peace: “The Holy One, blessed be He, found no vessel but peace which could contain all blessing.” This is a striking statement, elevating peace to the status of a foundation for all good things. But it comes with an important distinction: peace is a vessel. While it has the potential to hold blessings, it can also remain empty—an empty vessel. Peace with no content, tranquillity without sanctity, rest without meaning—all are hollow.
This insight applies across contexts: international diplomacy, interpersonal relationships, and the soul’s inner life. A life stripped of pressure and anxiety might be calm but still utterly void of meaning. This is not what I want—not to live like a rat in a cage, avoiding pain but trapped in futility. Instead, I want to know that when stress comes, I can return to equilibrium. Not to an empty calm, but to a state where holiness, however fragile, persists and cannot be eradicated.
The uncritical apotheosis of peace of mind carries significant risks. It threatens to turn emptiness into a virtue, negating not just stress and pain but also achievement and vitality. The Torah’s words in Deuteronomy—“I have set before you life and good, death and evil” (30:15)—are rendered in Ecclesiastes with more brutal clarity: “Better a living dog than a dead lion” (9:4). Why? “For the living know that they shall die, while the dead know nothing at all” (9:5). As long as there is struggle, there is potential. Even the lowly, instinctive fight for survival is better than the stasis of death—the peace that holds nothing and leads nowhere.
This is why being “ill” was so intolerable for me. It was not the pain but the inertia, the absence of forward motion. The days bled into each other, indistinguishable. Whatever struggle I managed felt animalistic, stripped to the level of a dog’s effort to merely survive. There is a profound humiliation in this state—something most people are unprepared for and should not experience.
Here lies the problem with goals: not all of them are achieved through external action. Some demand inner struggle—conflict within the soul itself. This is where philosophy often falls short. Asking, “What do I value? Knowledge, truth, love, enlightenment?” feels hollow when those values cannot be realized through thought alone. They are forged in the crucible of tension and turmoil, not in the sterile arena of intellectual reflection.
The path of inner conflict is neither easy nor safe. Every step carries the risk of failure—of falling further than where you began. No spiritual ladder can be climbed without tension, anguish, and constant effort. Often, this battle plays out between competing values: comfort versus growth, the present versus the possible. But fundamentally, it is a fight between what is and what could be. The inertia of the existing world is a relentless enemy, and breaking free from it can feel like tearing through chains.
I’ve experienced this firsthand. It’s like reaching a level in a video game that I am completely unqualified for—ascending too fast, only to be thrown back down, far below where I started. This is the nature of spiritual struggle. Progress is precarious, failure is inevitable, but still, the fight must continue. To remain still, to idolize peace for its own sake, is the real loss. That is the empty vessel, devoid of blessing. The only peace worth striving for is the one forged through tension, sanctity, and struggle.
I don't say this to fetishize suffering in the way that so many of my fellow Russians have. I mean this in the sense that a certain restlessness is a good thing.
CH2: Soul Searching
CH3: Fate Destiny & Free will
Free will is not a binary. Framing it as one will only lead to confusion. If you're looking for a clearer treatment of the topic, I recommend Akiva Tatz’s work on free will, which addresses this with more depth. This section of The Strife of the Spirit doesn’t fully satisfy.
As an intellectual and philosophical problem, the tension between human freedom and environmental determinants falls into the category of Kant’s antinomies—problems that force us to accept two contradictory conclusions. Kant, with his characteristic rigor, developed an elaborate system to address this rationally. Long before him, however, Moses Maimonides tackled the same issue within the framework of Jewish law in his Mishneh Torah. In grappling with the apparent contradiction between divine omniscience and free will, Maimonides argues that this is not something human reason alone can resolve. It requires acknowledging the incomprehensible nature of divine omniscience and omnipotence.
Rabbi Baruch of Kossov, in his book Sod HaEmuna (The Secret of Faith), builds on this idea. He writes that man must accept the paradox of free will and divine providence simultaneously. He asserts that we should recognize our freedom of choice while also believing that the Creator’s hand guides us in those choices. However, if someone cannot hold both concepts together, he insists they prioritize belief in free will—essentially, choose the perspective that empowers action over passivity.
The sages expand on this with a nuanced insight: there are times when a person is spared from disaster not through their own foresight but through divine intervention. They describe thorns and snares lying in wait for every individual. Most are too small to be noticed until it’s too late, but divine providence sometimes shields a person, without altering the overall trajectory of their life. Yet, when it comes to larger, more catastrophic events—events that reshape nations or communities—human freedom to influence outcomes is far more limited.
This doesn’t negate the significance of small actions. Small choices accumulate, creating momentum that influences future events. Take the man who carelessly breaks his leg—his life doesn’t simply resume unchanged afterward. His injury, though seemingly minor, alters his relationship with subsequent events. Similarly, a person who chooses evil over good sets off a spiral where each later decision is shaped by the context created by earlier actions. What might be insignificant to one person becomes deeply consequential for another, depending on the choices they’ve already made.
In this view, free will operates within an inner, limited sphere—what Steinsaltz calls a “small, inner world.” Within this realm, human freedom can profoundly change the meaning and significance of events, even while the larger world remains unaffected.
Why this matters: Free will, as Steinsaltz presents it, is not about grandiose autonomy to shape the universe. It’s a smaller, subtler force—one that shapes the trajectory of our inner lives, even when the external world remains indifferent. This tension between the limits of human agency and the reality of divine providence isn’t meant to be resolved. It’s meant to be lived with. Choosing to act—knowing that the consequences may ripple far beyond our comprehension—is the essence of human freedom.
CH4: Human Holiness
Our sages said, “Six things were said about man: in regard to three, he is like the ministering angels, and in regard to three, he is like beasts.” Babylonian Talmud, Ĥagiga 16a
Although it is agreed by everyone that man is complex and that this is characteristic of him, there have been continuous attempts to define this multicolored compound in terms of some simple unity. True, the mere wish to find unity in multiplicity is by no means a negative wish. The basis of every kind of philosophical or scientific thinking is this uniting of many facts into principles. The attempt to find such central points about man is in itself positive, but it involves some danger; for after finding the focal point of man’s being, it is very natural to mistake one point for the whole.
A man cannot enter into such a closed circle of angelic religion. A perfect man has within himself a whole world – heaven and earth, the highest and the lowest – and is not compressed in the little space of such doubtful religion. Such a man cannot pray wholeheartedly, because the synagogue is too narrow for containing all his inner world. Making man an angel is creating a dry, petty, and partial being. A good example of this dryness and constraint can be found in many books on morals written during certain periods. However, these books, which are masterpieces in themselves, lack the elements of true humanism. The greatness of these books is lost because the average man, full of every human feeling, cannot relate such books to his life; they often do not even hint at certain moral questions. You could study a classic book on morals and not find anything about love, social relations, work, physical life, et cetera. True, these books are good books, but they are good only for that part of man engaged in religious issues. These books are textbooks for angels; they cannot teach people. It was this contraction of religion into purely religious problems that caused the freezing of every human emotion and led to conservatism and, to some extent, self-deception and hypocrisy, for, if all religious subjects were so detached from everyday life, they would become merely frozen conservative forms that did not have any true meaning for anyone.
The true Jewish way is that of human exaltation. From the Pentateuch to the Last Prophets, from the Talmud to the great rabbis of Hasidism, there is an attempt to deal with a whole man, a man in whom part of the wholeness is his being combined of body and soul, bad and good. All the duties of Judaism are for a man, a physical and restricted creature. And for this reason there are also certain laws that are only for the satisfaction of the bestial desires of man. That is not negative in any sense because, since man is imperfect, there must be a real relation to sin. “You must stoop to him if you want to elevate him.”
This way is not a necessary evil but an ideal way in itself. In a more general sense, the aim of man is not to do holy duties and to be an angel on earth. Man’s task is to “reveal God’s being in the lower world” – and this is done by elevating the base and low elements and exalting them.
And so man has not to elevate his soul, because it is already high without man’s efforts; his task is to elevate his body, his intellect, his desires. The human being is to give all his essence to God, but not by elevating his mind to higher subjects and converting his desires into a desire for God. The real way is higher: to find God in all these thoughts and desires, to be a whole man – but to a higher degree.
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