Can a Jew Pray Directly to the Divine Attribute of Compassion?

Can a Jew pray directly to the Divine Attribute of Compassion? Yes, in just one prayer each year.

Yom Kippur Machzor - the book of Jewish Prayer for the Day of Atonement

On Yom Kippur in Neilah, in the final series of the prayers of compassion that we call the selihot, we utter the catalogue of God’s thirteen mainly emotional attributes over and over again, the familiar:

“Lord, Lord, God, Compassionate, with loving kindness, patient, with kindness and truth; keeper of mercy for thousands, forgiver of iniquity, transgression and sin; clearing us. Forgive our iniquity and sin and accept us.” (cf. Exodus 34:6-7)

Within this sequence of repeated meditations, the tenth century Italian payetan Rabbi Amitai ben Shepatiah presents in his prayer a direct appeal to the divine attribute of compassion to intercede for us:

Attribute of compassion, pour upon us
In the presence of your creator, cast our supplications
For the sake of your people, request compassion
For every heart has pain and every mind is ill
(Goldschmidt, YK, p. 778)

What my Rebbe, Rav Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Said to Me about Women, the Torah, the Synagogues and Checks

It is essential for Orthodox Judaism to provide women with full equality - to count them for a minyan, to call them to the Torah, and, after proper training, to ordain them as rabbis.

When Women Write the Checks
(I originally blogged this here in March, 2005 - published in the Jewish Press 2014)
 

In 1973, after I completed my Semicha studies with Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik at Yeshiva University, I attended his summer shiurim (Talmud classes) in Boston and then started as a PhD graduate student at Brown University.

Brown was known as a progressive community in an era of ferment. Some of us Orthodox graduate students gathered at the Hillel to engage in a traditional Minyan. Not surprisingly some of the women students there wanted to know how far we could push the envelope. Could we conduct an Orthodox service and give women aliyot to the Torah?

I knew these were all sincere and properly motivated students, seeking greater fulfillment in their practice of Judaism. So when they asked me to drive up to Boston and to discuss this issue with the Rav, Rabbi Soloveitchik, I readily accepted the challenge.

Rabbi Soloveitchik on the Ontology of Women and Replies to it - all in the Link

Note: A credible scholar gave a class on zoom  yesterday showing in detail that the Rav was wrong in his halakhic premises about this topic. I concur with that conclusion.

A New Transcription: Surrendering to the Almighty

By Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, zt”l | March 14, 2019

Editor’s note: Torahweb.org has just completed this new transcription as part of a forthcoming book. The full shiur, made in 1975 to Rabbinic alumni, is available on YU Torah here: https://tinyurl.com/y5ylmmax. This text is excerpted only in the interest of space, omitting several introductory paragraphs. The full transcription, with full footnotes, is available here: https://tinyurl.com/y5akgjoj.

...Today, let me say it in Hebrew, «כלו כל הקיצין» [2], and I feel it is my duty to make the following statement, and I am very sad that I have to do it. But somehow, I have no choice in the matter; there is no alternative. What I am going to say, I want you to understand, is my credo about Torah and the way Torah should be taught and Torah should be studied.

The study of Torah has had such a great cathartic impact upon me, as you understand it, is rooted in the wondrous experience I always have when I open up the Gemara. Somehow, when I do open up the Gemara, either alone or when I am in company, and I do teach others, I have the impression - don’t call it hallucination, it is not a hallucination - I have the impression as if I heard, I would say, soft footsteps of somebody invisible, who comes in and sits down with me, sometimes looking over my shoulder. It is simply, the idea is not a mystical idea, it is the Gemara, the mishna in Avos, the Gemara in Berachos say, «אפילו אחד יושב ועוסק בתורה שכינה שרויה» [4] and we all believe that the nosein haTorah, the One who gave us the Torah, has never deserted the Torah, and He simply walks, He accompanies the Torah, wherever the Torah has a, let’s say, a rendezvous, an appointment, a date with somebody, He is there.

USATODAY: Still men only at Augusta National the Master's Golf Course?

Believe it or not - this story and my blog post about it was published in 2012. Tomorrow they will award another green jacket. The world is still not right...

The Masters is the annual reminder to us all of how the old boys love their men only country clubs as USA Today asked in 2012, "Will Augusta National have its first female member?"

The story speculated on whether the club already had its first female member.

Three of the members of this most exclusive club in U.S. sports, if not in all of American culture, have traditionally been the CEOs of Exxon, AT&T and IBM. They have been invited to be members of Augusta National because they run the three corporations that sponsor the Masters. They've also been invited because they are men.

Last fall, however, IBM made a historic decision. It announced that as of Jan. 1, Virginia "Ginni" Rometty would become its first female CEO. Then, this week, on the eve of Masters week, Bloomberg News Service became the first to ask the logical question: Will Rometty become the first woman to wear a green jacket?

It's possible that the question actually might be moot. It is within the realm of possibility, remote as it might seem, that she's already a member and we simply don't know it yet.

As a famous Orthodox rabbi once told me, "When the women write the checks, then they will get called to the Torah." IBM writes a big check to Augusta National. A woman can join the club.

Yet let us not rejoice that egalitarianism reigns at Augusta. As they say in French, "Un oiseau ne fait pas le printemps."

What made Rav Soloveitchik a simply great Talmud teacher

It's now 25 years since my renowned teacher, Rav Soloveitchik, passed away.

When I published this short essay in 2005 in the Commentator, the YU undergraduate newspaper, I was proud to extol my rebbe in the most glowing terms I could imagine. After further review, as they say in the NFL, I still feel that way. I republished this in honor of the Yeshiva University Chag HaSemikhah Convocation that took place on Sunday, March 19, 2017. I received my rabbinic ordination from Yeshiva in 1973. My father received his rabbinic ordination from Yeshiva March 19, 1942.

Here again is my meager and utterly inadequate tribute to a truly great man.

R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik: Indelible Beginner

In the fall of 1969, as a college senior, I started four years of learning in Rabbi J. B. Soloveitchik's Talmud shiur.  In my family we venerated the Rav above all other rabbis. We spoke of him with the utmost reverence that one would bestow only upon a truly saintly man.

I received in those four years so much from the Rav: a methodology of learning, a theology of Judaism and, above all, a secret of pedagogy.

Let me explain briefly this last point. The Rav would sometimes in an occasional moment of surprising self-reflection refer to himself as a "poshutte melamed," just a teacher of beginners. That statement puzzled me. Surely the Rav was the greatest sage of our generation. How could he represent himself in this ordinary way?

One day I accidentally discovered what he meant. We convened on the fourth floor classroom for our shiur - about to begin studying a famous sugya in Massechet Shabbat. That day I was using a Talmud volume from a small shas that my uncle had used when he studied in the Rav's shiur many years earlier, in the fifties. I found interleaved in this book a page of my uncle's notes (i.e., Rabbi Noah Goldstein, my dad's brother) from the Rav's discourse on this sugya fifteen or twenty years earlier.

As we started reading the text, the Rav began to perform the magic that he was so good at. He made it seem to us all as if he was looking at the text for the very first time. He made every question he raised appear as if he was discovering a problem afresh. He made every answer and explanation that he examined in Rashi or the Tosafot appear to us as if it was new to him - a complete surprise.

The Rav dramatically unfolded a complex and intricate exposition of the sugya - and each stage of the discourse seemed so new and alive. Yet as I followed along and I read in my uncle's notes, I saw that the Rav was repeating each and every element of the shiur exactly as he had given it years before, insight by insight, question by question and answer by answer. He had me convinced that he had just discovered every element of his learning. Yet I had proof in front of me to the contrary.

I saw that day how the Rav had the ability to make every act of learning a new, exciting and living revelation. I have striven to emulate him ever since to replicate this ability and to achieve as a learner and as a teacher some small element of this revelation.

Hanging over my desk as I write this I have a quotation from the great German Poet Rainer Maria Rilke, "If the angel deigns to come it will be because you have convinced her not by tears but by your humble resolve to be always beginning: to be a beginner."

I believe the Rav would agree.

//repost from 8/2009//

Rav Soloveitchik, Rav Lichtenstein, Prof. Weidhorn, Prof. Flatto, Prof. Levy: My Five Greatest Teachers at Yeshiva University

I realized over the years since I graduated from Yeshiva College that so many of my teachers there imprinted upon me indelible lessons for life and learning. I have chosen here to recall five special teachers. I apologize to the many other wonderful teachers that I have omitted. I especially beg the forgiveness of those that I have chosen to so briefly and inadequately remember. Nothing that I say can do them justice.
[Periodic re-post -- to celebrate these great teachers.]

A Reexamination of Rav Soloveitchik's Ban on Interfaith Dialog

I recommend this insightful article from European Judaism, Volume 47, Number 2, Autumn 2014: 95–106: "SOLOVEITCHIK’S ‘NO’ TO INTERFAITH DIALOGUE," by Angela West.

Abstract
Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, one of the outstanding figures of modern Orthodox Judaism in the twentieth century, was opposed to interfaith dialogue and more particularly, to theological dialogue with the Catholic Church. In guidelines laid down in his paper ‘Confrontation’ in 1964 he proposed that Jews and Christians should discuss social and ethical problems together, but not matters theological. Since he was personally well acquainted with non-Jewish secular learning and had a philosophically sophisticated understanding of the role of halakhah, there has been much speculation as to why he sought to restrict dialogue in this way. Fifty years after ‘Confrontation’ was issued, it may be useful to re-examine his reasons and motivation in this matter and consider what relevance it has for contemporary interfaith relations.

You can obtain a copy (PDF) and additional related material here: To Access the Special Virtual Issue from European Judaism, please visit: http://bit.ly/World-Interfaith-Harmony

For more information about European Judaism, visit: www.journals.berghahnbooks.com/ej

VOLUME 47, NUMBER 2
Soloveitchik's 'No' to Interfaith Dialogue, Angela West
VOLUME 46, NUMBER 1
Reflections on the Promise and Limitations of Interfaith Dialogue, Paul R. Mendes-Flohr­
Social Media and the Movement of Ideas, Edward Kessler
Power and Authority in Religious Traditions in Islam: Reflections about issues of power and authority in the traditions and the present situation of Muslims in Europe, Hüseyin Inam
Growing Up Religiously in a Changing World, Julia Gardos
VOLUME 45, NUMBER 1
The Integrity of John Rayner and Inter-faith Relations, Richard Harries
Rabbi Hugo Gryn as Preacher, Marc Saperstein
VOLUME 39, NUMBER 2
Forty Years of European Judaism – Thirty Eight Years of Dialogue, Michael Hilton
VOLUME 37, NUMBER 1
Dialogue? Thank You, No! Ten Commandments for Interfaith Dialogue, Claus Leggewie

Background on World Interfaith Harmony Week - Virtual Issue from Young Lee:

The first week of February is World Interfaith Harmony Week, which aims to promote harmony between all people regardless of their religious faith. In honor of this event, we are delighted to offer free access to the following articles from our journal, European Judaism that deal with many aspects and opinions of interfaith dialogue and relations.

My Rebbe, Rabbi Gerson Yankelewitz has died at 104

My Talmud teacher in high school, my rebbe for two years, passed away a few days ago at age 104. Rabbi Yankelewitz taught his talmud shiur in Yiddish, a language that I did not speak. Yet I somehow thoroughly understood Rabbi Yankelewitz's shiurim. He made the texts so clear and was so patient, that I learned a tremendous amount while studying with him. After his shiur I went on the study with Rav Aharon Lichtenstein for two years, and then with Rav J. B. Soloveitchik for four years, and I became an ordained rabbi.

I admired Rabbi Yankelewitz for being brilliantly learned and yet never boastful. And my highest compliment, I liked him as a person. He was at once a gentle man and a gentleman and a firm and persistent teacher.

Reading this meaningful obituary below, I found myself near tears. It briefly describes a truly beautiful soul who has departed from our world. I am sure the soul of Rabbi Yankelewitz will cheer and brighten the next world, where I pray that he has everlasting peace in the paradise of Gan Eden with all of the eternal rewards that he so richly earned and deserves.

Long-serving YU Prof Succumbs At 104. Rabbi Gerson Yankelewitz remembered as ‘true giant’; studied with fabled leaders of old world Jewry.
Steve Lipman

...Rabbi Gershon Yankelewitz, died at 104 on Aug. 19 of a heart attack he suffered during the morning Shacharit service in upstate New York, where he spent his summers for several years. He was buried in Israel.

Rabbi Yankelewitz, who lived in the Pelham Parkway neighborhood of the Bronx, was believed to be the oldest person who maintained a regular teaching schedule at any university, yeshiva or rabbinical school in the United States, according to a YU spokesman. With the title senior rosh yeshiva, he taught a daily Talmud class and conducted a weekly Mussar (ethics) lecture for 60 years, and gave a daily lecture on Mishnayot between Mincha and Maariv services at the Young Israel of Pelham Parkway.

Tada! Tzvee Zahavy Wants You to See His New Book at Amazon

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God's Favorite Prayers @ $2.99

Is Basketball Without Yarmulkas Kosher?

In a post called, "Chief Rabbis, Basketball and Tolerance," blogger Andrew Griffel in Ops and Blogs in  The Times of Israel argues as follows.

Once upon a time long long ago Rabbi Soloveitchik told MTA orthodox high school students that they could play in Madison Square Garden with or without wearing their yarmulkas and tsitsis. It was up to them.

The chief rabbis in Israel are not as tolerant as Rabbi Soloveitchik. Therefore the chief rabbinate ought to be abolished.

We agree with the conclusion, if not with the non-linear logic of the post. And now that the office of chief rabbi has turned 100% nepotistic, the end of the institution is just around the corner. See Israel elects new chief rabbis.

Finally, consider this remarkable video of orthodox couples who are marrying in Israel outside of the regulation of the rabbinate - חתונה בלי הרבנות - הוויה - טקס ישראלי‬‎.

כתבה ביומן בערוץ 1 ביום שישי, על זוגות שמעצבים את טקס החתונה בעצמם בלי הרבנות

עוד על חתונה יהודית בלי הרבנות באתר הוויה

www.havaya.info

The Daily Beast: Dear Rabbi: Should I Shoot Women?

It happens. When you practice irrational thuggery in the name of religion it does not take long for an impressionable young person to get a really wrong idea. On the Daily Beast we read, "Dear Rabbi: Should I Shoot Women of the Wall?" by Sigal Samuel on Jun 6, 2013.

Fortunately (did we reach rock bottom yet?) there was no violence today as women prayed at the wall under a heavy police guard. It's getting clearer every day that Orthodox Judaism has decided to resort ever more often to bullying and thuggery against what it sees as weak Jewish opponents - women who want to pray. Not brave; not heroic. But the legacy of bullying vulnerable women via rabbinic decree goes back a long way to illustrious roots.

The Daily Beast reported, "In a disturbing QandA session, a 17-year-old Jerusalem yeshiva student asked a rabbi in an online forum whether it’s permissible under Jewish law to shoot and kill members of the liberal prayer group Women of the Wall when they gather at the Kotel. The boy was arrested today after Rabbi Baruch Efrati alerted police to the question—which, true to the rabbinic tradition of she’elot u-teshuvot (responsa literature, literally “questions and answers”), he nonetheless deigned to answer...."

Rav Soloveitchik on Israeli TV

Ethan Isenberg writes to us that Rav Soloveitchik will be featured on an Israeli Broadcast Premiere Sat night. Lonely Man of Faith will be on Israeli TV in two parts, on successive Saturday nights: April 20 and 27, both at 10 PM. The 18th of Nisan marked the 20th yarhzeit anniversary of the passing of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik.  This year, that date fell out on March 28 - 29.  Recordings are now available online of these memorial events: Yom Iyun at Beit Knesset "Ohel Ari" in Ra'anana, Israel, held on March 14 (3rd of Nisan) Yom Iyun at Yeshiva Chovevei Torah in New York, held on April 10 (30th of Nisan) Yom Iyun at Yeshiva University in New York, held on April 14 (4th of Iyar) Lonely Man of Faith is available on DVD. Click here to purchase the home version of the DVD. I recommend these books for you!

Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik's Haggadah for the Passover Seder by Rabbi M. Genack

Rabbi Menahem Genack published, The Seder Night: An Exalted Evening: The Passover Haggadah: With a Commentary Based on the Teachings of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. A Haggadah in English and Hebrew (2009).

We think it's a great book and happily added it both to our collection of Haggadahs and to our library of works about the teachings of my teacher, the Rav, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. It is a handsome and professional volume, clearly written and packed with content based on the Rav's torah teachings.

Genack was known as one of the best students in the class when I was in the Rav's shiur back in college and in rabbinical school. He's pursued a career of Jewish service and teaching and continues over the decades to shine as an exemplary disciple of the Rav.

Like most books that present the Rav's torah, this one approaches the task with great reverence and nostalgia. Those are great characteristics for me and for the other several thousand students who personally sat at the feet of the Rav and gave themselves over to him as his uncritical disciples. Genack writes his condensed accounts of the Rav's lectures with the clarity that I need to hear again the Rav speaking. He was a charismatic teacher with a wealth of learning that he imparted in many ways.

In his public talks, the Rav emphasized the experiential side of Orthodox Judaism. He often spoke poetically, I think to prove two important points.

First, he wanted to prove a personal point, to show the world that he was not a cold Litvak, not just a product of the Lithuanian Yeshivas who valued only factual erudition and cold logic.

Second, he had a program in his work, to create and express a form of Orthodox Judaism that was on par with the other great religions of the world. For him that meant in his time and place and out of his training in Europe that he had to demonstrate the validity and fecundity of Orthodox Jewish religious experience. He believed that he was the Jewish Rudolph Otto or William James and that from his teachings the world would see that Orthodoxy stands proudly next to any form of the esteemed Protestant religions of the Old or New World.

The Rav had another mission in his teaching and preaching. That was to transmit the Brisker Torah, the innovative conceptual insights of his own and his family's heritage of learning. So the Rav sought to investigate the phenomenology of Orthodox Judaism, to seek out and abstract the core idea from each performance of the numerous commandments and from each recitation of the many prayers.

How Peter Salovey is related to Rav J. B. Soloveitchik

In a comment to a Yale Daily News story, Peter Salovey, president of Yale explained his relationship to Rav Soloveitchik. (Hat tip to Billy.)

My Friends,

Here's how the family tree grows, as I understand it:

First there was Joseph Ha-Levi Soloveitchik of Slobodka and Kovno. He had a son Isaac. Isaac had two sons, Moses and Abraham. Moses had a son, Joseph, who was the rabbi of Kovno and was married to the daughter of Chaim Volozhin. Joseph had two sons, Isaac Zeev and Elijah Zevi. Isaac Zeev was the father to Joseph Ber (Beis Ha-Levi). His son was Chaim Brisker whose sons included Velvele Brisker and Moses. Moses was the father of The Rav, Joseph Dov (Ber) Soloveitchik.

Meanwhile, back to Elijah Zevi. He had a son Simcha (The Londoner), who had a son Zalman Yosef, who had a son Yitzchak Lev (Isaac Louis, my grandfather, who changed the name from Soloveitchik to Salovey when he immigrated to this country from Jerusalem), who had a son Ronald (Azreal), who fathered three children, one of them me!

So, my great-great-great grandfather (Elijah Zevi) and Joseph Dov (Ber) Soloveitchik (The Rav)'s great-great grandfather were brothers.

That should clear things up, no?

My sources for this are the Encyclopedia Judaica; Shulamith Soloveitchik Meiselman's excellent book, The Soloveitchik Heritage: A Daughter's Memoir; and family legend.

Thanks for the interest in my family.

Warmly,

Peter Salovey

Is Yale President Peter Salovey Jewish?

Yes, Yale President Peter Salovey is a Jew. He is also a psychology professor, a bluegrass musician (see article) and a cousin of my rabbinic teacher, Rav Joseph B. Soloveitchik. Hat tip to Billy for bringing this to our attention. Here is an article from the Yale Daily News that describes the president's rabbinic relationships.

Salovey’s rabbinic legacy
BY AHRON SINGER

In 19th-century Europe, a Rabbinic dynasty arose that would change the face of Orthodox Jewry and the face in Woodbridge Hall. The dynasty’s name would become synonymous with both brilliance and leadership — the Soloveitchiks. Since the mid-19th century, each generation of the Soloveitchik family has produced, and continues to produce, distinguished scholars and important spiritual leaders.

The family traces its origins to Chaim of Volozhin (1749-1821), founder of the Volozhin Yeshiva, a new and ambitious model in Jewish education, which effectively centralized and internationalized the Jewish academy. The academy endures as a model for present-day ultra-Orthodox institutions. Chaim Soloveitchik, his great-grandson, went on to become one of the greatest Talmudic scholars of the 19th century, renowned for his highly analytical, innovative and strict teaching of Jewish law, known as the Brisker method. His religious philosophy was profoundly insular, thriving in the isolated Jewish communities of Eastern Europe.

The most well-known of these great Rabbis was perhaps Chaim Soloveitchik’s grandson, Joseph B. Soloveitchik, the former dean of Yeshiva University. His influence remains so immense that in some circles he continues to be referred to as simply “The Rav” (The Rabbi). He holds a place as the intellectual inspiration of the Modern Orthodox movement for his work on Torah Umadda — the synthesis of traditional Jewish law and secular knowledge.

Is Philosophy Jewish?

No, philosophy is not Jewish. Philosophy originated in ancient pagan Greece. The practice of philosophy is not at all Jewish. In fact we believe philosophy is antithetical to both biblical and Talmudic modes of thought.

Yes, prominent Jews have written philosophical books, including Maimonides, Rav Soloveitchik and our dad. Rabbi Dr. Zev Zahavy wrote a wonderful book about cosmology and religious philosophy called Whence and Wherefore. If you haven't bought a copy yet, do so today.

An article by Jim Holt that our dad would have liked appeared today, "What Physics Learns From Philosophy" also titled "Physicists, Stop the Churlishness" on NYTimes.com.

It begins in a rather adversarial manner:

A KERFUFFLE has broken out between philosophy and physics. It began earlier this spring when a philosopher (David Albert) gave a sharply negative review in this paper to a book by a physicist (Lawrence Krauss) that purported to solve, by purely scientific means, the mystery of the universe’s existence. The physicist responded to the review by calling the philosopher who wrote it “moronic” and arguing that philosophy, unlike physics, makes no progress and is rather boring, if not totally useless. And then the kerfuffle was joined on both sides.

On “Reflections on the Influence of the Rov on the American Jewish Religious Community” by Dr. Tovah Lichtenstein

Notes by Tzvee Zahavy on "Reflections on the Influence of the Rov on the American Jewish Religious Community" by Dr. Tovah Lichtenstein

Dr. Tovah Lichtenstein, the daughter of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik (the Rov) wrote an essay, "Reflections on the Influence of the Rov on the American Jewish Religious Community." (TRADITION 44:4, 2011, Rabbinical Council of America, pp. 7-22.) In it she is up front in her self-assessment and thus characterizes her observations as opinion. She says at the outset, "I hope that my understanding of the Rov's influence on the community in which he lived will ring true to those who knew him and who wish to appraise his contributions to the American Jewish religious community."

She further limits her scope to appraising her father's,

a.       impact upon the religious community

b.       its commitment to Halakha

c.       its public stance in relation to the general society

d.      its self-image

This limited range is disappointing. We would prefer from the daughter of a noteworthy figure some new inside knowledge, perhaps about her father's self-appraisal of his successes or failures. A daughter's mere opinions about abstract issues concerning her father can be highly personal and more than likely they are biased.

Times: The Jeremy Lin Problem and Rav Soloveitchik

Is Jeremy Lin Jewish? No, he is not a Jew.

David Brooks quotes our teacher Rav Soloveitchik to explain the "problem" facing Knick basketball player and religious person Jeremy Lin.

This matter merits some Talmudic analysis. First, we don't have a clue what Brooks means in the essay. It has something to do with being religious and being a sports star. Somehow there is or ought to be a "problem" being both. Huh? Why?

Lonely Man of Faith: Meet the Gregarious Man of Faith

My great teacher Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik is known in part for his essay, "The Lonely Man of Faith." The article was published in 1965 in the Orthodox journal Tradition and then as a book with an introduction by Professor David Shatz. (A film about the Rav with the same title was produced by Ethan Isenberg.)

Koren-Maggid publishers have reissued the essay with a new introduction by Rabbi Reuven Ziegler, a clear and succinct summary of the article.

We greatly admire our esteemed teacher and have always believed that he meant well by publishing in this essay his emotional musings on the first chapters of Genesis and on the existential angst of the Orthodox Jew.

The dichotomy that the Rav imagined and spoke about between spiritual and material, religious and scientific, covenantal and majestic, for years did not speak to us, did not help us achieve religious understanding or satisfaction.

Finally we set forth our understanding of the "Gregarious Man of Faith" in our new book, which closely examines the core spiritual texts of Judaism and identifies six friends that accompany us daily in our own ideal unified and whole spiritual community.

We recommend you read both books, the Rav's lonely treatise, and our gregarious one.

"God's Favorite Prayers" - Six Friends the Gregarious Man of Faith Meets in His Synagogue

Joseph B. Soloveitchik on REDEMPTION, PRAYER, TALMUD TORAH

In November 2009 we reflected:

In 1978, my teacher, Rav Joseph B. Soloveitchik published an essay titled REDEMPTION, PRAYER, TALMUD TORAH. It began,

Redemption is a fundamental category in Judaic historical thinking and experiencing. Our history was initiated by a Divine act of redemption and, we are confident, will reach its finale in a Divine act of ultimate redemption.

What is redemption?

Redemption involves a movement by an individual or a community from the periphery of history to its center; or, to employ a term from physics, redemption is a centripetal movement. To be on the periphery means to be a non-history-making entity, while movement toward the center renders the same entity history-making and history-conscious. Naturally the question arises: What is meant by a history-making people or community? A history-making people is one that leads a speaking, story-telling, communing free existence, while a non- history-making, non history-involved group leads a non-communing, and therefore a silent, unfree existence...

I decided to reread this essay because I thought I might add it to the readings in a seminar that I am teaching at JTS. I decided not to. The reasons - for just about every paragraph, I either don't understand the author's intent or I don't agree with how he characterizes Judaism.

To start with, I don't know what a fundamental category is, what Judaic historical thinking is or what experiencing is. It could be that he means to say in sentence one, "God's redemption of Israel is a prominent theme in Judaism." Or maybe not.

It could be that he means to continue in sentence two, "We believe God redeemed us in the past from slavery in Egypt and that he will redeem us in the future in the Messianic age." Or maybe not.

I simply disagree with the claims of the next paragraph. I just never heard anyone define redemption as moving to the center of history - becoming history-making and conscious - being able to speak, tell stories and commune and be free. And actually I do not know what all that means. But even so - I disagree with it, and I think that the physics example doesn't help matters.

The Rav goes on in the essay to speak about slaves and slavery - how slaves are mute and have no narratives, makes a passing reference to concentration camps, and how free people speak and have a voice, and a word, and a logos, how that is what prayer is all about and how prayer is related to the study of Torah.

And he tells us there is another type, an existential slave, whose world is in chaos because he is ignored and anonymous. Man is lost, sin is born until man "finds himself" through prayer in which he finds his needs awareness. Prayer makes man "feel whole" and it is where "God claims man."

My best estimate of what the Rav tried to do here - this is his exercise in insinuating an existentialist  philosophical reflection into a contemplation of Jewish prayer.

The Rav wrote more about prayer elsewhere, some of which I will assign to my seminar, just not this article.