About Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan

The following appears as the "about the author" text on many of Rabbi Kaplan's works. It should be noted that Wikipedia asserts he actually produced over 60 books, not 47.

Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, 1934-1983

Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan's meteoric rise as one of the most effective, persuasive, scholarly and prolific exponents of Judaism in the English language came to an abrupt end on January 28, 1983, with his sudden death at the age of 48. Rabbi Kaplan was a multi-faceted, uniquely creative and talented author. The 47 books that were his life's work accounted for a qualitative and quantitative leap in Jewish publishing, making a host of difficult topics and concepts available to the English-reading public.

In the course of a writing career spanning only 12 years, Aryeh Kaplan became known to Jewish youth and adult readers for such books as Waters of Eden-The Mystery of the Mikvah: Sabbath-Day of Eternity: God, Man and Tefillin; Tzitzis-The Thread of Light; The Light Beyond; The Handbook of Jewish Thought; and The Living Torah, a clear, contemporary translation of the Five Books of Moses.

Rabbi Kaplan was born in New York City and was educated in the Torah Voda'as and Mir Yeshivos in Brooklyn. After years of study at Jerusalem's Mir yeshiva, he was ordained by some of Israel's foremost rabbinic authorities. He also earned a Master's degree in physics and was listed in Who's Who in Physics in the Unite States.

Aryeh Kaplan's unusual warmth, sincerity and total dedication to Torah were an inspiration to the thousands he reached personally. the process of bringing Torah to the masses, Rabbi Kaplan revealed much of which was previously hidden. his mind contained libraries of books, waiting to be put into writing. It was the will of the Lord that so much be revealed and no more.