Modern Judaism Advance Access published March 15, 2012

Jeffrey R. Woolf

TIME AWARENESS AS A SOURCE OF SPIRITUALITY IN THE THOUGHT OF RABBI JOSEPH B. SOLOVEITCHIK*

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A tense, dialectical relationship between religion in essence and religion in manifestation is at the core of the Jewish religious consciousness- its legal configuration and its historical experience. Halakah is the indispensible manifestation and prescribed concretization of an underlying and over-riding spiritual essence, a volatile, magnetic and incompressible religious force designated as Judaism.1

With these words, the late Isadore Twersky sought to define Judaisms central dynamic as an eternal, Heraclitean struggle between Spirituality and Law. Inherent in his model is the axiomatic independence of each of these antipodes. On the one hand, he posited that Jewish Law (Halakhah) moves according to its own inner logic and rules. At the same time, it must reflect and express, teach and instill the deeper spiritual and moral values of Judaism. Twersky continues that Judaism is marked by the painful awareness that manifestation and essence sometimes drift apart, from the sober recognition that a carefully-constructed, finely chiseled normative system cannot regularly reflect, refract or energize interior, fluid spiritual forces and motives . . . If Halakha is a means for the actualization and celebration of ethical norms, historical experiences, and theological postulates, then external conformity must be nurtured by internal sensibility and spirituality.2 The means by which this goal may be achieved has varied over the ages. Different disciplines have, in different times and places, presented themselves as candidates to fill this vivifying interaction with Halakhah.3 Their task, however, was essentially interpretive. Philosophy and Mysticism, Ethics and Pietism infused the Law with meaning, and fashioned the sacred canopy within which its dictates were fulfilled. Halakhahs essential autonomy, however, was a given.4 Twerskys characterization of the interplay of Law and

doi:10.1093/mj/kjr029 The Author 2012. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com

Jeffrey R. Woolf

Spirituality closely approximates two major themes in the writings of his father-in-law, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik (referred to by his students and admirers as the Rav).5 First, and foremost, R. Soloveitchik posited that Jewish Law, or Halakhah, is absolutely autonomous. It operates according to a closed universe of discourse, and functions according its own a priori concepts, logic, and textual analysis.6 It sets its own intellectual pathways and creates its own reality.7 Objective reality, therefore, must be approached and appreciated through the a priori lens of Halakah. As he notes in Halakhic Man:
Halakhah has a fixed a priori relationship to the whole of reality in all of its fine and detailed particulars. Halakhic man orients himself to the entire cosmos and tries to understand it by utilizing an ideal world which he bears in his halakhic consciousness. All halakhic concepts are a priori, and it is through them that halakhic man looks at the world.8
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Consistent with his belief in Halakhahs autonomy, Rabbi Soloveitchik studiously avoided historical explanations of halakhic concepts or to rabbinic legal texts. This was true whether he was expounding Talmudic texts in his role as Rosh Yeshiva at Yeshiva University, or when interpreting them in a homiletical or philosophical context.9 Doing so, he asserted, would relativize Halakhah, open it up to reductionism, and destroy its essential integrity. All of this is well known to those familiar with R. Soloveitchiks formal philosophic oeuvre. Less well known, however, is the fact for the last thirty-five years of his active career, he devoted enormous attention to the need for cultivating the inner spiritual, emotional, and religious aspects of Jewish religious life and observance. He did so, it would appear, precisely for the reasons noted by Professor Twersky in the above-noted article; because external conformity must be nurtured by internal sensibility and spirituality. Otherwise, ritual observance would become nothing more than mechanical, meaningless ceremonies.10 R. Soloveitchik gave early expression to this concern in a relatively unknown, but important essay that was published late in 1959.11 Entitled Al Ahavat ha-Torah u-Geulat Nefesh ha-Dor (On the Love of Torah and Redeeming the Soul of the Generation), the essay was written in response to an earlier published interview with him, which had appeared in the Israeli daily, Yediot Aharonot. R. Soloveitchik wished to clarify some of the points that had been attributed to him, and took the opportunity to share some of his thoughts on the state of Orthodox Judaism in America.12

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In response to the question, whether he was satisfied with the present state of Torah education, R. Soloveitchik replied that while he had much cause for satisfaction, nevertheless:
I regret three negative phenomena, which prevent the realization of the entire dream. First, the number of young people who are actually studying in Yeshivot is extremely small. And, while it is true that the number grows from year to year, the overall situation is far from satisfactory. Second, we have yet to educate truly outstanding Torah scholars (Gedolei Torah), in whom we may take real pride. There are learned circles, and Talmidei Hakhamim, but no Torah scholars of real stature. The flowers have appeared on the earth,13 but the vine has yet to emerge in its glory.14
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At this point, the Rav turns to his major point, which occupies a large portion of the remainder of the essay. Third, and here I spoke at great length . . ., I unintentionally touched upon a serious educational-philosophical problem that has been of great concern to me for quite some time. I said that for Orthodox young men, the Torah reveals itself in the form of modes of Talmudic analysis (lamdut),15 rational awareness and cold logic. However, they have yet to be privileged with the living, sensual, experience, which both gladdens the heart and causes it to tremble. They know the Torah as an idea, but they do not encounter it as an unmediated Reality, that is felt through taste, sight and touch.16 The need for a deeply felt, emotional element in the act of Torah study became a leitmotif of the Ravs subsequent discussions of the subject. He inveighed against detached, arid Talmud study and admonished his students to be acutely aware of the whispers of eternity, and the inter-generational dialogue that vivifies and energizes study.17 On another occasion, he expatiated on the nature of this emotional experiential dimension of Torah study, describing it as a total, all encompassing, all embracing experience, an ecstatic experience, in which one meets God.18 Greater even than his desire to deepen the experience of Talmud study, R. Soloveitchik was profoundly concerned with the fate of Jewish observance. He devoted formal public lectures, eulogies, Yahrzeit presentations, class time and countless impromptu remarks to the absolute, emphatic and critical necessity for the Jew to infuse ritual observance with a deeply emotional, experiential dimension. This emphasis has, perhaps, evaded the eyes of researchers of his thought because, until recently, almost none of the loci in which he addressed this topic have been published.19 One exception, though, is found in his eulogy for Mrs Rebecca Twersky, ah, the Talner Rebbetzin.20 Speaking of the education passed on to him by his own parents, R. Soloveitchik posits that there are two mutually dependent,

Jeffrey R. Woolf

and mutually fructifying, modes of tradition that make up Jewish religious life. In typically typological form, based upon Proverbs 1, 2, he refers to them as your fathers instruction (mussar avikha) and your mothers teaching (torat imekha), respectively.21 Regarding the former, he observes that one learns much from father: how to read a text - the Bible or the Talmud - how to comprehend, how to analyze, how to conceptualize, how to classify, how to infer, how to apply, etc. . . . One also learns from father what to do and what not to do, what is morally right and what is morally wrong. Father teaches the son the discipline of thought as well as the discipline of action. Fathers tradition is an intellectual-moral one. That is why it is identified with mussar, which is the Biblical term for discipline.22 In other words, the Paternal tradition is attractive, yet insufficient. Torat Imekha, however, is very different. What is Torat Imekha? What kind of a Torah does the mother pass on? I admit that I am not able to define precisely the massoretic role of the Jewish mother. Only by circumscription I hope to be able to explain it. Permit me to draw upon my own experiences. I used to have long conversations with my mother. In fact, it was a monologue rather than a dialogue. She talked and I happened to overhear. What did she talk about? I must use a halakhic term in order to answer this question: she talked me-inyana de-yoma. I used to watch her arranging the house in honor of a holiday. I used to see her recite prayers; I used to watch her recite the sidra every Friday night and I still remember the nostalgic tune. I learned from her very much. Most of all, I learned that Judaism expresses itself not only in formal compliance with the law but also in a living experience. She taught me that there is a flavor, a scent and warmth to mitzvot. I learned from her the most important thing in lifeto feel the presence of the Almighty and the gentle pressure of His hand resting upon my frail shoulders. Without her teachings, which quite often were transmitted to me in silence, I would have grown up a soulless being, dry and insensitive. (Emphasis added) The laws of Shabbat, for instance, were passed on to me by my father; they are a part of mussar avikha. The Shabbat as a living entity, as a queen, was revealed to me by my mother; it is a part of Torat Imekha. The fathers knew much about the Shabbat; the mothers lived the Shabbat, experienced her presence, and perceived her beauty and splendor.23 The upshot of this touching description is that with all of the emphasis that R. Soloveitchik placed upon the autonomy of Jewish Law, and the centrality of rigorous analysis of the sources thereof,

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the absence of a deeply emotional, experiential element in Jewish religiousity, renders Judaism soulless, dry and insensitive. This is a far cry from the picture of Halakhic Man, for whom Talmudic analysis alone satisfies both his intellectual curiosity and his inner life.
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This drive to balance observance of the Law with emotional, spiritual, and intellectual content, led R. Soloveitchik to place heavy emphasis upon the need to experience and identify with religious observance. 24 Interestingly, many of the most important discussions of this subject are to be found not in his philosophical or his broadly homiletical writings, but were enunciated in the context of expounding halakhic texts and themes. This fact underscores the inseparability, the mutual dependence, of Mussar Avikha and Torat Imekha, even if the methodology employed in each might be different. It should also caution students of R. Soloveitchiks thought of the perils inherent in bifurcating his corpus scriptorum between the Philosophic and the Halakhic. As with Maimonides, there is far more integrity between the two areas than has been hitherto granted.25 One particular type of experience that played a persistently central role in his teaching was the need to transcend the boundaries of Time and Space and to relive critical moments in the Jewish Historical past. The quintessential example of this, one to which he returned on many occasions, is the obligation to recount the Story of the Exodus on Passover Eve (Sippur Yetziat Mitzrayim).26 He observed that the word story (sippur) implies far more than a mere, emotionally detached, narrative. It must contain, by definition, a profoundly experiential element; an experience of profound self-identification. Telling a story does not simply pass on information. It requires that one participate therein, and reexperience it.27 The act of narration smashes the walls of time and space that divide the narrator and the event being described. As he states:
The commandment to remember this day when you left Egypt. . . obligates one to be perpetually aware of the Exodus from Egypt, that one be totally immersed in this event, as the Mishnah (Pesahim 166b) sets forth: A Person is required to see himself as if he went out of Egypt. And Rambam, when citing the words of the Mishnah, even added, as if he, himself, had now left Egypt, totally moved, totally shaken, absolutely glowing . . . This commandment demands much more: feeling both slavery and freedom, and feeling, as Maimonides emphasized, as if he himself had just been there; as if he were now living the events that he is recounting.28

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While, this dimension of the Passover Seder is not new, per se, R. Soloveitchik made it a leitmotif of his teaching, applying it in numerous other connections.29 In his comment to Exodus (19, 1), Rashi states that words of Torah should be new for you as if they were only given today.30 For R. Soloveitchik, Rashis statement was both an interpretive key, and a spiritual mandate.31 For example, in a series of shiurim that were devoted to Maimonides discussion of the Laws regarding the Public Reading of the Torah, the Rav zeroed in on the Talmudic passage (B. Megillah 21b) upon which Rambam had based his ruling.32 The Mishnah, there, rules that three men are called up to the reading of the Torah on Mondays, Thursday, and Saturday afternoons.33 The Talmud asks: What do these three represent? R. Assi said: The Pentateuch, the Prophets and the Hagiographa. Raba said: Priests, Levites, and lay Israelites.34 Consistent with the canons of Brisker analysis, wherein both sides of defining arguments are deemed to be fundamentally correct, R. Soloveitchik assumed that both R. Assi and Raba were correct.35 The reason, he declared, was because every public reading of the Torah constitutes a veritable reenactment of the Revelation at Sinai. Therefore, just as the entire Jewish People was present then, all sectors of the nation must be represented when the Torah is read publically: Priests, Levites, and Israelites (Raba). Furthermore, since the entire Torah is one undifferentiated whole, as was the initial act of Revelation, so too each of its three subsections must also be represented whenever it is invoked (R. Assi).36 This scripting was not merely a symbolic action. It is meant to drive home to the Jew that he is duty-bound to reexperience the act of revelation every time the Torah is read or studied. He expressed this idea in a speech that he delivered to the Rabbinic Alumni of Yeshiva University in 197537:
Teaching has a very strange impact upon me. I simply feel that when I teach Torah, I feel the breath of eternity on my face . . . Therefore, the study of Torah has never been for me a dry, formal, intellectual performance. No matter how important a role the intellect plays in Limmud ha-Torah. You all know very well that I place a great deal of emphasis upon the intellectual understanding and analysis of the Halakha . . . So there is no doubt that the intellect plays a tremendous role in Limmud ha-Torah.

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However, Talmud Torah is more than an intellectual performance. It is a total, all-encompassing and all-embracing involvement; mind and heart, will and feeling, the very center of the human personality38 . . . Talmud Torah is basically, for me, an ecstatic experience, in

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which one meets God. And, again, I want to say that whatever I told you now is not just mysticism, or due to my mystical inclinations. It isnt so. The Gemora says so. Hazal have equated Talmud Torah with Revelation. The great events, the drama, of Giluy Shkekhinah (Theophany) is reenacted and restaged and relived every time a Jew opens a gemora. The Talmud in Berakhos, while discussing the problem of a Baal Qeri39 . . . expressed itself as follows:40 But make known to thy children and thy childrens children . . . The day on which thou didst stand before the Lord thy God in Horeb (Deut. 4, 910). So the Torah didnt say, Make known the Halakhos. More than that! Make known, simply, your rendezvous with God. It means they should experience exactly what you experienced when you stood before your God in Horeb. How did your people stand before God at Horeb? With fear, awe, with a tremor in the heart; trembling. So must every Jew who engages in Talmud Torah stand before God, with fear, awe and tremor . . . to experience Revelation every time he engages in study. The Rav maintained that the obligation to return to Sinai and to reexperience the original Sinai Revelation is not only an essential, inseparable element of the fulfillment of the commandment to study Torah, but (further on in his remarks) he maintained that its absence can actually bar an individual (e.g., a baal qeri) from the supreme commandment of Torah study. These last remarks presume the ability of an individual to actually reenact and reexperience the past. This capacity, he asserts, is based upon a specific definition of Time and of Time Awareness that varies from that which is commonly sensed by contemporary people. As the late Eliezer Goldman noted, R. Soloveitchik posited that the Jew lives in two, very different time frames and time experiences.41 One is physical time. It is chronometric, uni-directional, and irreversible. However, alongside this mode of time perception there is another, wherein past, present, and future blend into one another. This mode of Time creates a perceptual and experiential spectrum in which past and future are both accessible and reversible.42 The Rav first addressed this distinction in print, in his discussion of the Jewish concept of Repentance (Teshuvah) in his essay, Halakhic Man.43 His point of departure was his contention that Halakhically sin has a double impact upon the sinner. On the one hand, it requires of the sinner to make amends for the damage or hurt that he may have caused.44 However, sin also impacts directly upon the sinners inner persona. His iniquity categorizes him as being evil (rasha), and per se legally invalidates anything he might say (pasul la-edut).45 Only through repentance can the sinners

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persona be cleansed of this disability. For that, the Rav declares, it is not enough to simply go through the standard stages of penitence (acknowledgement of the sin, regret, confession, and commitment not to sin).46 One must transform ones personality, and emerge a totally new individual. He writes:
There is a living past and there is a dead past. There is a future which has not yet been created, and there is a future already in existence. There is a past and there is a future that are connected with one another and with the present only through the law of causality- the cause found at moment a links up with the effect taking place at moment b, and so on. However, time itself as past appears only as no more and as future appears as not yet. From this perspective repentance is an empty and hollow concept. It is impossible to regret a past that is already dead, lost in the abyss of oblivion. Similarly, one cannot make a decision concerning a future that is as yet unborn. Therefore, Spinoza [Ethics IV, 54] and Nietzsche [in Genealogy of Morals]- from this perspective- did well to deride the idea of repentance. However, there is a past that persists in its existence that does not vanish and disappear but remains firm in its place. Such a past enters into the domain of the present and links up with the future . . . From this perspective we neither perceive the past as no more nor the future as not yet nor the present as a fleeting moment. Rather past, present, future merge and blend together and this new three-fold time structure arises before us adorned with a splendid unity.

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The entire concept of Repentance is predicated upon the conception of Time as a continuum, wherein the tenses maintain a true symbiotic, synergistic relationship. The contiguity and accessibility of the Past from the Present allows the individual to retroactively change the former, and wipe ones sin from his personal history. Such a daring transformation is only possible, according to R. Soloveitchik, because Halakhah does not limit its definition of time and causality to the irreversible reality that is most familiar to western man. He returned to this subject a few years later, in The Halakhic Mind,47 and a year later in a lecture delivered in memory of his father, R. Moses Soloveitchik.48 In the latter essay, the Rav applied his dual-model of time-awareness to Judaism generally. Explicitly acknowledging his debt to Henri Bergson, he observes that Bergson speaks of fleeting time, living and immeasurable, beyond the scientists mesh. No clock can be applied to this qualitative time, which is transient, intangible, and evanescent, and, on the other hand, creative, dynamic, and self-emerging. In this time there are no milestones separating past, present, and future. It is not unidimensional, as is physical time, but multidimensional, compenetrating and overlapping past, present, and future.49 However, these two, contradictory, modes of time-perception co-exist in human experience

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and create the type of dialectical reality that is so characteristic of the Ravs thought. There are some people who live in quantitative, dead time. They measure time by the clock and by the calendar. For them there is no merger of the past and the future. The present itself is a lost moment. A year is endless. How much more so centuries and tens of centuries! These people are deprived of an historical consciousness; for history is the living experience of time. The man, however, who lives in qualitative time has a different criterion of the experience of time than the quantitative experience. He measures time not by length-extension but by pure quality, creativity, and accomplishment. While for the man with a quantitative apprehension all fractions of time are equal because all represent physical ts; for the man of qualitative apprehension, there is no equality among temporal fractions of time. Moments are heterogeneous. One may live an entire life span quantitatively, not having lived even a moment qualitatively. And, contrariwise, one may have lived a moment quantitatively and have lived through an eternity qualitatively. This alternative, qualitative, time leads the individual to a significantly different view of and relationship to both the objective past, and refashions ones spiritual life. R. Soloveitchik sums up the confluence of time perception and memory; of religious observance and historical reexperience, in a recently published essay entitled Avelut Yeshanah and Avelut Hadashah; Historical and Individual Mourning.50 R. Soloveitchik contrasts the experience of personal mourning and grief that is engendered by the loss of a loved one, with the national mourning that is observed for the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, over 1900 years ago. The first, he observes, is a natural response to evil, bereavement, and pain. The latter which, prima facie, is so distant from contemporary man as to be irrelevant, can only be understood in light of the qualitative mode of time-awareness that he referred to in Sacred and Profane.51 As the passage repeats some of the earlier points, I will confine myself to his newer emphases. Judaism developed a very peculiar philosophy of memory indeed, an ethics of memory. Memory and forgetfulness are subject to ethical determination. Memory is not just the capacity of man to know events which lie in the past. Memory is experiential in nature; one does not simply recollect the past or just remember bygones, but reexperiences that which has been, and quickens events that are seemingly dead. Many mitzvot are based upon this idea. The Passover seder is, of course, the prime example: In each generation a person is required

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to see himself as if he had gone out of Egypt (Haggadah). So too is keriat ha-Torah, the institution of the public reading of the Torah, which is not simply limmudstudy and instructionbut an experiential event meant to restage and reenact Mattan Torah, the giving of the Torah . . . .When Rambam speaks about the obligation of Hakhel, the public reading of the Torah performed by the king in Jerusalem every seven years, he writes that the king is the representative of the kahal, the congregation, and the entire kahal must pay close attention to the keriat ha-Torah. Even the wise and great, as well as converts who do not understand the Hebrew text, must concentrate and hearken with dread and trepidation in the same manner as the Jews hearkened to the words of God when the Torah was given at Sinaias if the law were being proclaimed now for the first time, as if the person were hearing it from the Almighty, listening to the voice of God Himself (Hilkhot Hagigah 3:6). Rambam actually has spelled it out in plain terms. The rubric of In each generation a person is required to see himself as if he had gone out of Egypt is applicable not only to the Exodus, but to all events which the Torah has commanded us to remember and not forget. Experiential memory somehow erases the borderline separating bygone from present experiences. It does not just recollect the past, but reexperiences whatever has been. It quickens events which man considered dead and it actually merges past with presentor shifts the past into the present. Judaism has recommended what I would call a unitive time consciousnessunitive in the sense that there is a tightening of bonds of companionship, of present and past . . . . Since Jews have a unitive time consciousness, the gap of centuries simply cannot separate them from the past. They do not have to relive the past, as the past is a current living reality. Memory opens up new vistas of the time experience, and the companionship of the present and past is tightened, growing in intimacy and closeness. As a matter of fact, our relationship to our heroessuch as Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai, or even the Patriarchs and the Prophetsis completely different from that which the nations of the world have to their heroes. To us, they are not just ancient heroes. Usually history is divided into antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the contemporary period. However, the word antiquity does not exist in our history. The story of Joseph and his brothers, the story of the destruction of the Temple, the story of Moses deathall used to move me to tears as a boy. It was not just because I was a child; it was not an infantile reaction on my part. It was very much a human gestalt reaction. These stories do not lie in antiquity; they are part of our time awareness, part of our historical experience. Similarly, there is no archaeology in

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Judaism. There is history but not archaeology. Archaeology refers to something remote, a dead past of which I am no part. It arouses my curiosity; I am inquisitive to know about the origins. But history to us means something living, past integrated into sent anticipating future. We all know the aphorism, He-avar ayyin (the past is no more), ve-he-atid adayyin (the future has not yet come), hoveh ke-heref ayin (the present is fleeting). However, in my opinion this is wrong. The past is not gone; it is still here. The future is not only anticipated, it is already here, and the present connects the future and the past. That is what I mean by a unitive time consciousness. Tishah be-Av, the Ninth of Av, would be a ludicrous institution if we did not have the unitive time consciousness. We say in the Kinnot, On this night, be-leil zeh, my Temple was destroyed. This night means a night 1900 years ago; be-leil zeh means tonight. Apparently, that night, years ago is neither remote nor distant from us; it is livingas vibrant a reality as this fleeting moment in the present. The unitive time consciousness contains an element of eternity. There is neither past nor future nor present. All three dimensions of time merge into one experience, into one awareness. Man, heading in a panicky rush toward the future, finds himself in the embrace of the past. Bygones turn into facts, memories into living experiences and archaeological history into a vibrant reality.52

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According to R. Soloveitchik, unitive time consciousness constitutes a critical element in the fulfillment of historically based religious observances. It provides the critical experiential element to the technical observance of various commandments, without which those observances (e.g., the Passover Seder), would be legally deficient.53 In this regard, his approach parallels insights that emerge from the work of religious and historical anthropologists such as Mircea Eliade, Aron Gurevich, Jacques Le Goff, and Jonathan Z. Smith.54 These scholars emphasize that traditional societies cultivate a fluid sense of time and place. This renders formative events and central places accessible, irrespective of the time and place in which a member of that society. Furthermore, as Eliade noted in his pioneering study, The Myth of the Eternal Return, the capacity to return to and reexperience formative events in the past is a critical component of traditional religious life. The emphasis that R. Soloveitchik placed upon this type of reexperiencing as the vivifying (and validating) element of the

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Passover Seder, the act of Torah Study and the Public Reading of the Torah; found special emphasis in his interpretation of the fast of Tisha BAv. According to rabbinic tradition, Tisha BAv commemorates five disasters that occurred on the Ninth of Av. Of these, the most important are the destruction of the First and Second Temples in 586 BCE and 70 CE, respectively.55 A central element of the commemorations on that day is the recitation of elegiac poems (Qinot) which describe and evaluate the events that occurred on that day.56 Over time, elegies were added to the Ashkenazic liturgy that recalled later disasters and persecutions, especially the massacres that accompanied the First Crusade.57 R. Soloveitchik attributed special significance to the fact that these events, which occurred in the spring and early summer of 1096, were nevertheless marked at the end of the Summer, on Tisha BAv.58 For him, all Jewish suffering and disaster were a direct result of the destruction of the Temple, and therefore must be subsumed and understood under the rubric of mourning the over the destruction of the Temple, the ultimate expression of Hester Panim, of the Deus Absconditus.59 Thus, in addition to experiencing past events anew, the Rav subsumed historical events under the aegis of ur-experiences and catastrophes.60 Every year, during all-day study sessions that were dedicated to the recitation cum elucidation of the Tisha BAv liturgy, he would hammer away at this point. His point of departure was always an elegy by the eleventh century scholar, R. Qalonymos b. Judah, describing the attacks on Speyer, Worms and Mainz during the First Crusade.61 Entitled, Mi Yiten Roshi Mayim, the relevant passage reads62:
Take this to heart, and compose a bitter eulogy. For their murder is worthy of morning and lying in the dust; To a degree equal to that for the burning of the House of or God, the ante-room and the Palace However, because it is improper to add a day of breach and conflagration, And wrong to advance the date; rather to postpone it. In its place, therefore, I will today arouse my grief and lament and wail, And cry with bitter soul, With sighs weighing heavily from dawn to dusk, For the house of Israel and the people of the Lord who have fallen by the sword.63

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R. Soloveitchik understood the words because it is improper to add a day of breach and conflagration, as reflecting a binding legal norm that barred the possibility of adding commemorative days to the calendar.64 This conviction, based upon a confluence of law and philosophy, led him to consistently oppose the creation of Israels Holocaust

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Remembrance Day (Yom ha-Shoah); all the while insisting that the only appropriate date was the Ninth of Av.65 As he noted on one occasion:
In fact, Hurban Yisrael is a part of Hurban Beit ha-Mikdash because if the Beit ha-Mikdash were standing, or destiny would have been different. Hurban Beit ha-Mikdash is an all-inclusive concept. If the Hurban Beit ha-Mikdash deserves mourning, it is incumbent upon us to mention and feel a sense of mourning on Tishah BAv for all the catastrophes, tragedies, sufferings and disasters that happened to the Jewish people during our more than nineteen hundred years of Exile, because all of them are a direct result of the Hurban Beit ha-Mikdash. Had the destiny of the Beit ha-Mikdash been different, all the catastrophes and disasters would never have happened. If not for the Hurban Beit ha-Mikdash, the Crusades and the Hitler Holocaust, for example, would not have taken place. Everything, every disaster, is a result of Hurban Beit ha-Mikdash; that destruction is responsible for everything.66
III

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The desire to cultivate historical awareness and a sense of perpetual historical present and collective memory, led R. Soloveitchik to integrate historical data, anecdotes and analyses in his lectures, shiurim, and presentations.67 The purpose was to demonstrate the essential continuity of Jewish National and Religious experience, on the one hand, and to dramatize that experience, in order to stimulate an appropriate emotional response on the part of his audience, on the other. Historical data constituted raw material for his educational efforts. Nevertheless, despite his summary rejection of academic historicist explanations of Jewish Law and Lore, historical knowledge did play an implicitly positive role in his thought.68 His interpretation of the origins and significance of Hanukkah provide a case in point. In a Saturday Night lecture that he delivered in Boston in 1971, he highlighted the fact that Maimonides opens his discussion of the holiday not with the well-known story of the cruse of oil,69 but with an historical description concerning the background to the Hasmonean revolt and the subsequent liberation of Jerusalem and the rededication of the Temple.70 Maimonides did so, he explained, because the central reason for lighting the candles is to publicize the miracle (pirsum ha-nes). Indeed, he concluded, telling the story of the Maccabean revolt is a halakhic requirement, as part of the obligation of pirsum ha-nes.71 However, the central miracle is not, as commonly thought, the miracle of the oil that lasted eight days, but the historical events of which the latter is only a part. He drove that point home by offering a detailed description of the historical, cultural and religious factors that

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lay behind Antiochus IVs decrees, and the Jewish reaction. This included a long, detailed scholarly analysis of Hellenistic culture and philosophy which emphasized the aggressive, imperialist character of the Hellenist mindset.72 By implication, all of this purely historical knowledge is also part of the mitzvah of publicizing and experiencing the miracle of Hanukkah.73
IV

The inclusion of historical data and analysis in philosophic and semi-halakhic contexts raises a broader question regarding R. Soloveitchiks epistemological assumptions. When interpreting a Talmudic or Halakhic text, in the context of a traditional Shiur, he hied, nigh on exclusively, to the categories and methods that he inherited from his father and grandfather, a closed discourse if ever there was one.74 He scrupulously avoided citing non-Rabbinic sources in his presentations.75 He was even averse to employing the interpretations of out of the way medieval commentators, R. Menachem Ha-Meiri or R. Moses Halawa.76 His Talmudic sitz im leben was that of the tradition of Volozhin and Brisk. When interpreting Halakhah, he employed a more nuanced approach.77 Thus, when characterizing the prominent role played by Western Thought and Literature in R. Soloveitchiks writings, Professor Isadore Twersky noted:
What is distinctive is the fact that the Rov does not preach or cajole, persuade or brainwash; he does not present an elaborate rationale for the study of philosophy. The latter simply appears as part of his intellectual capital; he uses it freely and wisely and effectively in his various expositions and explorations of Jewish thought. The Rovs philosophic and homiletical corpus has no apologetics; there is no attempt to argue and demonstrate the importance of general learning as an abstract proposition just as there is no attempt to defend or glorify western culture. Similarly, there is no attempt to demonstrate that traditional Judaism is with philosophy (or any part of it). This truly noteworthy feature is a result of the fact that for the Rov there was nothing essentially problematic about the Masorah; he did not feel compelled to prove that Torah and philosophy or science are compatible. Neither Kant nor Kierkegaard, Hegel or Husserl, are a source of authoritative norms or principles to which Judaism must conform. Rather Kant and Kierkegaard, Bergson and James and many other figures from classical to contemporary thought provide a reservoir of ideas and insights, concepts and categories to be used critically and constructively in the analysis and clarification of aspects of the masorahindeed, in the attempt to portray and explain the traditional, often-maligned Talmudist or to enhance ones appreciation for the

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unique religious significance of Halakhah. The cliches of the history of Jewish thought: synthesis, symbiosis, harmony, reconciliation - are missing from his vocabulary and are not applicable to his teaching. His all-encompassing philosophic, scientific and humanistic knowledge served him for his own purposes, for creative, enthralling exposition, for urbane, intelligent discourse, for subtle, sophisticated commentary on Torah ideas.78

Twersky is stressing that R. Soloveitchik rigorously maintained the traditional division of labor between Religion and Law, that he had, himself, described some twenty-five years earlier. Extra-halakhic sources and insights served a critical role in cultivating Jewish Religious experience. Their interaction with Halakhah, however, was interpretive, not normative. Upon closer examination, however, it emerges that the rigor with which R. Soloveitchik maintained that distinction was rooted in an epistemological model that represented a fundamental break with that of medieval Jewish philosophical tradition.79 The latter proceeded from the assumption that the paths of Reason and of Revelation, of Greek Philosophy and Torah, were essentially coterminous, both having been bestowed by the same Shepherd.80 The task of the philosopher was, then, to integrate the two sources of knowledge and to resolve the apparent points of conflict between them. Different thinkers, albeit, reached different results on this score. Sometimes the prima facie claims of Philosophy were rejected. On other occasions, Jewish sources were recast, reinterpreted or relegated to the role of necessary popular beliefs. The fundamental pattern, however, was the same: synthesis, symbiosis, harmony, and reconciliation. This stance, however, could have serious implications. Consider, for example, the case of Maimonides.81 He posited that mans summum bonum is the perfection of the intellect, which is the portion of the soul that earns perpetual bliss in the Hereafter. The observance, and rational understanding, of the commandments brings the individual to that state. In that connection, Maimonides assigned teleological reasons to the commandments (Taamei Mitzvot). However, in doing so, he potentially subordinated the observance of the Law to its overall intention. That, in turn, raised the specter of anti-nomianism. In order to prevent this and maintain the integrity of the Jewish Legal system, Maimonides introduced methodological brakes, such as his dogma of the uniqueness of Mosaic Prophecy. According to this postulate, Moses prophetic powers were sui generis, with the result that only he was entitled to legislate in that capacity. Thus, as advanced as one might be intellectually, one could never, by definition, abolish Biblical Laws despite ones awareness of their telos.82 R. Soloveitchiks modus operandi avoided such potential pitfalls. Since Halakhah is a priori, conceptually and intellectually autonomous,

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it could never become subject to any system of thought outside of itself (e.g., Philosophy, History, Psychology, or Anthropology).83 Freed of concern for possible antinomian consequences, the Rav was actually more liberal and more intellectually liberating than that of the medievals and their followers. He was free to bring to bear the broadest gamut of General Culture as a reservoir of ideas and insights, concepts and categories to be used critically and constructively in the analysis and clarification of aspects of the masorah,84 in order to deepen the spiritual and emotional experiences that inhered to Observance of the Commandments.
BAR ILAN UNIVERSITY

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NOTES

*This study is derived from certain emphases in a lecture that was delivered at a conference dedicated to Rabbi Soloveitchiks thought, held at Jerusalems Van Leer Institute in December 2003. The original paper was published in, Rav be-Olam Hadash: Iyyunim be-Hashpaato shel Ha-Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik al Tarbut, al Hinukh ve-al Mahshavah Yehudit, edited by Naftali Rothenberg and Avinoam Rozenak (Jerusalem, 2010), pp. 32338. In its present form, it greatly expands two or three points that were not fully developed in the original paper. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are mine. 1. Isadore Twersky, Religion and Law, in Religion in a Religious Age, (ed.) Shlomo D. Goitein (Cambridge, MA, 1974), p. 69. 2. Ibid., pp. 6970. 3. Ibid. The analysis of the interaction between Law and Spirituality became the leitmotif of Twerskys research. See, inter alia, Isadore Twersky, Talmudists, Philosophers, Kabbalists: The Quest for Spirituality in the Sixteenth Century, in Jewish Thought in the Sixteenth Century, edited by B. Cooperman (Cambridge, MA, 1983), pp. 43159; idem, Law and Spirituality in the Seventeenth Century: A Case Study in R. Yair Hayyim Bacharach, in Jewish Thought in the Seventeenth Century, edited by Isadore Twersky and Bernard Septimus (Cambridge, MA, 1987), pp. 44767 and the magisterial discussion in idem, Introduction to the Code of Maimonides (Mishneh Torah) (New Haven, 1980), VI: Law and Philosophy. 4. Jacob Katz, The Rule of Halakhah in Traditional Jewish Society: Theory and Praxis, in his Divine Law in Human Hands; Case Studies in Halakhic Flexibility (Jerusalem, 1998), pp. 17190 and idem, Post-Zoharic relations between Halakhah and Kabbalah, ibid, pp. 3155. Katz, himself, noted that Medieval Philosophers were far more respectful of Halakhic autonomy than were Jewish mystics. 5. Twersky explicitly acknowledged R. Soloveitchiks profound impact upon his work (and life) in the preface to his first book, Rabad of

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Posquieres: A Medieval Talmudist, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia, 1980), p. viii. I believe that his concentration upon this specific theme is a prominent example of that influence. See Bernard Septimus, Isadore Twersky as a Scholar of Medieval Jewish History, in Beerot Yitzhak: Studies in Memory of Isadore Twersky, (ed.) Jay Harris (Cambridge, MA, 2005), pp. 1227. 6. See also Avraham Buckstein, Halakhic Epistemology in Neo-Kantian Garb: J. B. Soloveitchiks Philosophical Writings Revisited, Jewish Studies Quarterly, Vol. 5 (1998), pp. 34668. 7. See Dov Schwartz, Religion or Halakha: The Philosophy of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, trans. Batya Stein (Leiden and Boston, 2007), pp. 194222. 8. Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Halakhic Man, trans. Lawrence Kaplan (Philadelphia, 1991), p. 23. See Schwartz, Religion or Halakha, ibid and William Kolbrener, Towards a Genuine Jewish Philosophy: Halakhic Minds New Philosophy of Religion, Tradition, Vol. 30 (1996), pp. 2143. 9. It is commonly assumed that in Halakhic Man, R. Soloveitchik was enunciating, in neo-Kantian terms, an underlying principle of the method of Talmudic analysis that is identified with his grandfather, R. Chaim Soloveitchik (18531918), the so-called Brisker Derekh. See Shlomo Tykocynski, Darkhei ha-Limmud be-Yeshivot Lita ba-meah ha-19, MA thesis, Jerusalem: Hebrew University 2004. Recently, Aviad ha-Kohen has demonstrated that R. Soloveitchiks deep involvement in neo-Kantian thought had little, if any, impact upon his method of Talmudic interpretation. See Aviad ha-Kohen, Ma Nishtanah? Qavim le-Heqer Mishnato ha-Lamdanit shel ha-Rav Soloveitchik, in Rav be-Olam Hadash: Iyyunim be-Hashpa ato shel Ha-Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik al Tarbut, al Hinukh ve-al Mahshavah Yehudit, (eds.) Naftali Rothenberg and Avinoam Rozenak (Jerusalem, 2010), pp. 299322. On the other hand, when it came to actual halakhic decision-making, R. Soloveitchik was willing to acknowledge the role of subjective judgment. See Lawrence Kaplan, The Religious Philosophy of Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, Tradition, Vol. 14 (1973), p. 52, n. 44. 10. Cf. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Community, Covenant, and Commitment: Selected Letters and Communications of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, (ed.) Nathaniel Helfgot (Hoboken, 2005), passim. He once remarked to me (in this connection) that pure ceremonialism is, essentially, pagan. 11. Ha-Doar, Vol. 40 (1959), pp. 519523. It was reprinted, in full, in Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Be-Sod ha-Yahid ve-ha-Yahad, (ed.) Pinchas Peli (Jerusalem, 1976), pp. 40332. Subsequent publications of the essay have been edited, to one degree or another. All references here will be to the Peli edition. 12. The reporter was a young journalist named Eliezer Wiesel, who later became famous as the Nobel Prize winning author, Elie Wiesel. 13. Cant. pp. 2 and 12. 14. Pinchas Peli (ed.), Joseph Soloveitchik, Be-Sod ha-Yahid, (Jerusalem 1976), p. 407. Cf. Todd (Tzvi) Pittinsky, The Role of Teacher and Student

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in Jewish Education According to Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Ten Daat, Vol. 18 (2006), pp. 94104. 15. Lamdut usually refers to the modes of Talmudic analysis cultivated in the Yeshivot of Lithuanian provenance. See Tykocynski, Darkhei ha-Limmud, passim and Yosef Blau (ed.), The Conceptual Approach to Jewish Learning (New York, 2006). 16. Ibid. pp. 4078. 17. See Uniting the Generations (http://download.bcbm.org/ Media/RavSoloveitchik/MachshavaOther/Uniting_Generations_Karasik_ Pidyon_Haben_-_3-20-74_r.mp3). A precis was published as The First Jewish Grandfather, in Abraham R. Besdin, Man of Faith in the Modern World: Reflections of the Rav, Volume Two (Hoboken, 1989), pp. 1524. 18. See the discussion below. 19. Much of the material remains in unpublished manuscripts or in tape recordings of his various presentations. In recent years, a significant amount of this material has become available through the efforts of the Toras HoRav Foundation and through websites such as the Bergen County Bet Midrash (http://www.bcbm.org). 20. The eulogy was first published in the Boston Jewish Advocate (January 1, 1977). It was subsequently published as A Tribute to the Rebbetzin of Talne, Tradition, Vol. 17 (1978), pp. 7383. 21. Ibid. p. 76. 22. Ibid. 23. Ibid. pp. 767. 24. The type of experiential dimension that was desired differed according to context. Prayer and Sabbath Observance demanded different sensitivities than did the observance of Holidays and Holy Days. See Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Service of the Heart, (ed.) Shalom Carmy (Hoboken, 2003). 25. Two important exceptions to this tendency to bifurcate the Ravs writings are: Professor Gerald Blidstein. See, for example, On the Halakhic Thought of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik: The Norms and Nature of Mourning, Tradition, Vol. 30 (1996), pp. 11530; and Professor Dov Schwartz (Religion or Halakhah, passim and idem, Me-Heqer ha-Todaah le-Teur Ishiyut ha-Qiyyum (Ramat Gan, 2008). Despite the presence of substantive and pervasive tensions within both Rambams and R. Soloveitchiks oeuvres, I believe that they both possess a fundamental unity. 26. Ex. 13, 8. See, inter alia, Mitzvat Qeriat Shema u-Zekhirat Yetziat Mitzrayim, Shiurim le-Zekher Abba Mari, I (Jerusalem, 1983), pp. 119; Be-Inyan Sippur Yetziat Mitzrayim, ibid., II (Jerusalem, 1985), pp. 153 63; David Schreiber, Sefer Noraot ha-Rav, VIII (New York, 1998), pp. 150; Yehiel Michel Shurkin, Sefer Hararei Qedem, II (Jerusalem, 2004), pp. 1627 and David Shapiro, Rabbi Soloveitchik on Pesach, Sefirat ha-Omer and Shavuot (Jerusalem, 2005), pp. 5367. 27. The source is found at: http://download.bcbm.org/Media/ RavSoloveitchik/Moadim/SipurYetziasMitrzrayim_1_77.mp3 and http:// download.bcbm.org/Media/RavSoloveitchik/Moadim/ SipurYetziasMitrzrayim_2_77.mp3.

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28. Be-Inyan Sippur Yetziat Mitzrayim, pp. 1534. 29. According to a recently published memoir, he emphasized experiential religiosity as early as the late 1930s. See Zev Eleff, Mentor of Generations: Reflections on Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik (Jersey City, 2008), p. 9. 30. Ibid. s.v. ba-yom ha-zeh. 31. As Avraham Grossman has noted, this interpretation reflects Rashis own outlook. Cf. Avraham, Grossman, Emunot ve-Deot be-Olamo shel Rashi (Alon Shvut, 2008), pp. 8391. 32. Mishneh Torah, Hil. Tefillah pp. 12, 16. Cf. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Shiurim le-Zekher Abba Mari, I (Jerusalem, 1983), pp. 15778 and http:// download.bcbm.org/Media/RavSoloveitchik/GemaraHalacha/Kriyas_ Hatorah_Pt1_1975.mp3. 33. M. Megillah 3, 6. 34. B.T. Megillah 21b. 35. Differences of opinion are more a question of emphasis, rather than substance. See, e.g., Hiddushe Rabbenu Hayyim ha-Levi al ha-Rambam, Hil. Meilah pp. 8, 1 and Shlomo Tykocynski, Darkhe ha-Limmud be-Yeshivot Lita ba-meah ha-19, PhD diss., Hebrew University 2004, pp. 5266. 36. See Qeriat ha-Torah be-Shabbat, ba-Sheni u-va-Hamishi, Shiurim le-Zekher Abba Mari, I (Jerusalem, 1984), p. 29. The Rav addressed the same text, with added emphasis, in a series of classes that he delivered in August 1975. The lecture is located at: http://download. bcbm.org/Media/RavSoloveitchik/GemaraHalacha/Kriyas_Hatorah_Pt2_ 1975.mp3. 37. http://download.bcbm.org/Media/RavSoloveitchik/ GemaraHalacha/Gerus_Mesorah_Pt1_1975.mp3. The transcription has been lightly edited. This speech is better known for its implications for the question of resolving the plight of women who are denied religious divorces by their husbands (Tav le-meitav), and for its polemical critique of R. Emanuel Rackman. My student, Ms Aliza Bazak, is presently completing a doctorate in which she examines the legal implications of R. Soloveitchiks remarks. The latter point was recently discussed by Lawrence Kaplan, From Cooperation to Conflict: Rabbi Professor Emanuel Rackman, Rav Joseph B. Soloveitchik, and the Evolution of American Modern Orthodoxy, Modern Judaism, Vol. 30, No. 1 (2010), pp. 4668. 38. Cf. Al Ahavat ha-Torah, pp. 40911. 39. According to Talmudic tradition, a man who has experienced a seminal emission may neither pray nor study Torah until he immerses himself in a miqveh. Cf. Encyclopedia Talmudit, IV, pp. 13048 s.v. baal qeri. 40. B.T. Berakhot 22a. The Rav cited the passage in Hebrew and then offered an English paraphrase. 41. Eliezer Goldman, Teshuvah va-Zeman be-Hagut ha-Rav Soloveitchik, Emunah be-Zemanim Mishtanim, (Jerusalem, 1997), pp. 17590. The point was briefly alluded to by L. Kaplan, Religious Philosophy of Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, Tradition, Vol. 14 (1974), p. 57.

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42. Cf. Halakhic Man, pp. 1178. Goldman notes (ibid., pp. 17684) that R. Soloveitchiks ideas betray the influence of Husserl and Schiller. As we shall soon see, the Rav, himself, highlights his debt to Bergson. An expansive discussion of this dual time model is found in an address delivered in 1970 to the Boston Jewish Community, entitled: The Challenge to the Traditional Jew (http://download.bcbm.org/Media/ RavSoloveitchik/MachshavaOther/Challenge_to_Traditional_Jews_Part_1_ 4-5-70_r.mp3). 43. Halakhic Man, pp. 1107. 44. Cf. M. Yoma pp. 8, 9. 45. Cf. B.T. Sanhedrin 27a; Mishneh Torah, Hil. Edut 10, 1; and Shulhan Arukh, Hoshen Mishpat sec. 34 paras 12. 46. Mishneh Torah, Hil. Teshuvah 2, 1; 2, 4; and 7, 6. 47. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, The Halakhic Mind: An Essay on Jewish Tradition and Modern Thought (New York, 1986), pp. 4750. See Schwartz, Religion or Halakha, pp. 2957. The essay was actually written in 1944. 48. The non-halakhic portion was published as Sacred and Profane: Kodesh and Hol in World Perspectives, Ha-Tzedek (MayJune, 1945), pp. 124. It was republished in Gesher (Sivan, 1966), pp. 529. 49. Sacred and Profane, pp. 10-11. He already anticipated part of this discussion in Halakhic Man, pp. 117ff. 50. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Out of the Whirlwind: Essays on Mourning, Suffering and the Human Condition, (eds.) David Shatz, et al. (Jersey City, 2003), pp. 931. 51. Here, as in Sacred and Profane (10), he explicitly acknowledges his debt to Bergsons Matter and Memory (New York, 1990). 52. Pp. 1617. Cf. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, The Lord is Righteous in all His Ways: Reflections on the Tishah be-Av Kinot, (ed.) Jacob J. Schacter (Hoboken, 2006), pp. 702; and The Koren Mesorat Harav Kinot: Tefilla for Tisha BAv, Kinot, Eikha / with Commentary on the Kinot Based Upon the Teachings of Joseph B. Soloveitchik , (ed.) Simon Posner (New York, 2010), passim. 53. A proper evaluation of the legal implications of the cognitive and spiritual components of ritual observance requires consideration of Rabbi Soloveitchiks interpretation of the role of intent (kavannah) therein. This requires a separate discussion. In the interim, see Iggerot ha-GriD ha-Levi ad Hil. Qeriat Shema 2, 1 and Shiurei ha-Rav al Inyyane Tefillah u-qeriat Shema, (ed.) Menachem Genack (New York, 2010), pp. 557. 54. Mircea Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return, or, Cosmos and History, trans. W. Trask (Princeton, 1991); Aaron Gurevich, Categories of Medieval Culture, trans. G. L. Campbell (London, 1985); Jacques Le Goff, History and Memory (New York, 1992); and Jonathan Z. Smith, To Take Place (Chicago, 1987). 55. M. Taanit 4, 6. On the development of this, and the other commemorative fasts, see Joseph Tabory, Moadei Yisrael be-Tequfat ha-Mishnah ve-ha-Talmud (Jerusalem, 1995), pp. 396-406.

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56. See Ezra Fleischer, Shirat ha-Qodesh ha-Ivrit Be-Yeme ha-Baynayim,2 (Jerusalem, 2007), pp. 71-72; 204-206, and 444-442. 57. See Daniel Goldschmidt, Seder ha-Qinot le-Tisha bAv (Jerusalem, 1972), pp. 716 and Simha Goldin, The Ways of Jewish Martyrdom (Leiden, 2008). 58. Cf. Robert Chazan, European Jewry and the First Crusade (Berkeley, 1987), pp. 5084. 59. The comment concerning Hester Panim is taken from my own notes of R. Soloveitchiks lectures on Tisha BAv, 1975. 60. Cf. Yerushalmi, Zakhor. passim. 61. My student, Matania Ben Ghedalia, has collected and examined the available information concerning him. See M. Ben Ghedalia, The Rabbinic Sages of Speyer in the Era of the First Crusade: Their Lives, Leadership and Works at the end of the 11th century and the beginning of the 12th century, PhD dissertation, Bar Ilan University 2007, p. 18. 62. Goldschmidt, Seder ha-Qinot le-Tisha bAv (Jerusalem, 1972), 96 l. 5562. 63. The translation is based upon that found in The Koren Mesorat Harav Kinot, p. 456, emphasis added. I have, however, made a number of changes to better reflect both the Hebrew original, and R. Soloveitchiks understanding thereof. 64. Cf. Sefer Hararei Qedem, II, (ed.) Yehiel Michel Shurkin (Jerusalem, 2004), p. 310. In this, he was following a classical Ashkenazic practice of using piyyut as a legal source. See Yisrael M. Ta Shma, Hitabdut ve-Retzah ha-Zulat al Qiddush Ha-Shem: Le-Sheelat Meqoma shel ha-Aggadah ba-Massoret ha-Pesiqah ha-Ashkenazit, Yehudim mul ha-Tzelav: Gezerot TaTNU be-Historiya u-ve-Historiografiya, (eds.) Yom Tov Assis, et al. (Jerusalem, 2000), pp. 1506. 65. See Herschel Schachter, Nefesh Ha-Rav (Jerusalem, 2006), pp. 1978. See also, Judith Baumel-Schwartz, Kol Bekhiyot: Ha-Shoah ve-haTefillah (Ramat Gan, 1992); and Roni Stauber, Ha-Vikkuah be-Shenot ha-Hamishim beyn ha-Tziyyonut ha-Datit le-veyn ha-Smol ha-Tziyyoni al Moed Yom ha-Zikkaron la-Shoah, in Medinah ba-Derekh: Ha-Hevra ha-Yisraelit ba-Asorim ha-Rishonim, (ed.) Anita Schapira (Jerusalem, 2001), pp. 189203. 66. Cf. The Lord is Righteous in all His Ways, pp. 2114, especially pp. 289301. Emphasis added. 67. The texts on Tisha BAv are rife with proof of this contention. 68. On the other hand, his decidedly utilitarian approach to historical data could lead to (what could charitably) only be seen as chronological inaccuracies. Thus, on one occasion, he assumed that R. Gershom Meor ha-Golah (d. 1028) was a contemporary of Charlemagne. 69. B.T. Shabbat 21. 70. Mishneh Torah, Hil. Megillah ve-Chanukkah 3, 13. The most concentrated presentation is found at: http://download.bcbm.org/Media/ RavSoloveitchik/Moadim/AlHanisim_Chanuka_Boston_71.mp3. 71. Joseph. B. Soloveitchik, Days of Deliverance: Essays on Purim and Hanukkah, (eds.) E. Clark, et al. (Jersey City, 2007), pp. 180ff. Significantly,

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he also made this point in purely halakhic context. See Hararei Qedem, I (Jerusalem, 2000), p. 271. 72. The point has been highlighted in recent historiography. See Frank E. Peters, The Harvest of Hellenism: A History of the Near East from Alexander the Great to the Triumph of Christianity (New York, 1971) and Uriel Rappaport and Yisrael Rogen (eds.), Medinat ha-Hashmonaim le-Toldoteha al Reqa ha-Tequfa ha-Hellenistit, (Jerusalem, 1993). 73. For a similar discussion, see the discussion of the Burning of the Talmud in 1242 (The Lord is Righteous in all His Ways, pp. 2878) and the manner in which it is integrated into an excursus on Catholic Theology and its attitude toward the Jew. It seems to me, that this material must be taken into consideration when evaluating R. Soloveitchiks manifesto on Inter-faith dialogue, Confrontation. Cf. http://www.bc.edu/dam/files/ research_sites/cjl/texts/center/conferences/soloveitchik/index.html. 74. The late Professor Isadore Twersky noted that the Ravs innovation in the field of Talmudic exposition lay in the expansion of the texts and subjects that he studied, not in the methodology applied thereto (I. Twersky, The Rov, Tradition, Vol. 30 (1996), p. 12). 75. See above, n 9. This was true both of his shiurim at Yeshiva University and of his popular Talmud classes in Manhattan and in Boston. So striking was this dichotomy that students who attended the former for many years could honestly assert that they never heard him mention anything not strictly Talmudic in class. See Eleff, Mentor of Generations, p. 65 and Herschel Schechter, Nefesh Ha-Rav,2 (New York, 1999), pp. 13. 76. This is borne out by recordings of his lectures, written notes by students and by my own almost ten years in his class. 77. Scholars are, indeed, divided on the question as just how to characterize R. Soloveitchiks non-Talmudic writings. See, most recently, Shubert Spero, Aspects of Rabbi Joseph Dov Soloveitchiks philosophy of Judaism, (Jersey City, 2009). 78. I. Twersky, The Rov, pp. 323. 79. See Alexander Broadie, The Nature of Medieval Jewish Philosophy, in History of Jewish Philosophy, edited by Daniel Frank and Oliver Leaman (London and New York, 1997), pp. 6571. A modern exemplar of this model was R. Eliezer Berkowits. See Eliezer Berkovits, Essential essays on Judaism, (ed.) David Hazony (Jerusalem, 2000). 80. See, for example, R. Saadiah Gaons introduction to The Book of Doctrines and Beliefs, trans. Alexander Altmann, Three Jewish Philosophers, pp. 3647. 81. The following is heavily indebted to Isadore Twersky, Introduction to the Code of Maimonides (Mishneh Torah), (New Haven, 1980), Ch. VI. 82. Mishneh Torah, Hil. Yesodei ha-Torah 8-9 and Guide for the Perplexed 2, 35. Cf. Marc Shapiro, The Limits of Orthodox Theology: Maimonides Thirteen Principles Reappraised (Cambridge, 2004), Ch. 6. 83. Above, n 6. 84. I. Twersky, The Rov, p. 32.

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