The collection of articles by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz is an unusual book by an unusual person. On the one hand, he is a professional, a rare expert on the Torah in the broad sense of the word, i.e., all Jewish classical writing. On the other hand, he is an encyclopedist, a person extremely erudite in many areas of science and art. He does not broadcast, does not preach - but thinks out loud, forcing us to look at familiar concepts from a new, unexpected angle. The rabbi talks about things that are difficult to classify as religious disciplines: love, stupidity, money, psychoanalysis, jurisprudence and much more. The universality of the topics he discusses, along with the depth and clarity of thought, attracts the attention of people belonging to different cultures to his articles. His appeal to these topics is not an excuse to talk about the main thing, not a means of bewitching intellectuals. He is really interested in all this, he has something to say, and he does it with enviable skill, without peppering his speech with quotes from sources. The effect is extremely unexpected: a new genre is born, which can be defined as a conversation of a sage on “worldly” topics. Since this term is unknown to Russian literary criticism, it is worth saying a few words about it.