The Essential Talmud is a superb window through which we can gain a glimpse, and more, of perhaps the most unique sacred work in the history of religion. In a single brief volume, Rabbi Steinsaltz succeeds in capturing the flavor and spirit of the Talmud as a human document and at the same time summarizes its main principles as an expression of divine law. A work of profound scholarship and of concise, simple, and brilliant pedagogy. The Essential Talmud will make equally enlightening reading for those who are already versed in the subject and those who come to it for the first time. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.