Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz, one of Judaism’s modern-day commentators, died in Jerusalem on August 7. He was 83.

He began his career as an educator and school principal in Jerusalem. That was also the beginning of his writing career, which included about 60 books during his lifetime on an array of topics from the Talmud, the Torah, Jewish mysticism, Chassidism and Jewish philosophy.

In 1965, in conjunction with the government of Israel, he founded the Israel Institute for Talmudic Publications, later the Steinsaltz Center, from which he helped make Judaism and the heritage of Israel accessible by translating and explaining the Babylonian Talmud to the world. His writings have been translated into dozens of languages.

Among his long list of awards and degrees are the Israel Prize for Jewish Studies (1988); the President’s Medal (2012); and honorary doctorates from Bar-Ilan University, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and Yeshiva University in New York. The U.S. Library of Congress recently announced that an English translation of an extensive work about the Steinsaltz Center had been accepted into the library’s catalogue.