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Revisionism and the Rav: The Struggle for the Soul of Modern Orthodoxy

Judaism, Summer, 1999 by Lawrence Kaplan

THERE IS A MAJOR STRUGGLE CURRENTLY TAKING PLACE within the modern Orthodox community, a struggle over the correct understanding of the person and teachings of Rav Joseph B. Soloveitchik, ztz"l, better known simply as the Rav. The Rav, one of the towering rabbinic scholars and thinkers of our era, was, as is well known, the teacher, guide, and, above all, the supreme halakhic and hashkafic authority of the modern Orthodox community for over fifty years. The struggle, then, is not just scholarly, but ideological as well. Indeed, in the deepest sense, it is a struggle over the direction and future course of the modern Orthodox community, a struggle over its very soul.

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This type of struggle is not new to the modern Orthodox community. If we look at other rabbinic heroes of modern Orthodoxy, for example, Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-1888), founder of enlightened German neo-Orthodoxy, rabbinic scholar, Biblical commentator, and communal leader, or Rav Abraham Isaac Kook (1865-1935), the first Chief Rabbi of mandatory Palestine, talmudist, kabbalist, poet, communal leader, and Orthodox herald of the Jewish national renewal, we find that their persons and teachings as well have been and, indeed, still are the subjects of intense, often heated debate. Nor should this be surprising. Rav Hirsch, Rav Kook, and the Rav were, in different ways, very rich, complex figures: major rabbinic scholars who at the same time seriously engaged modernity intellectually; individuals whose teachings and persons blended together, in striking ways, conservatism and innovation, strict traditionalism and intellectual daring. It is intrinsically difficult to paint nuanced intellectual portraits th at will do justice to the richness of their religious legacies. Moreover, different elements of the modern Orthodox community focus on those aspects in the teachings of these figures that they find intellectually or religiously congenial and gloss over those aspects they find uncongenial. Thus, the more modern, "left wing" elements of the modern Orthodox community tend to focus on the more innovative, humanistic, and universalist aspects of the legacies of these three giants, and minimize the more conservative, authoritarian, and particularist aspects of their legacies, while that community's more traditional, "right wing" elements simply reverse the order of priority.

Thus there are those who emphasize the deep strain of humanism and idealism in the thought of Ray Hirsch, his focus on the Bible as opposed to the Talmud, his refusal to accept rabbinic aggadot as authoritative, and his universalist and diaspora-centered vision of the mission of Israel, while there are others who would point to his vision of a separatist Orthodox community, his fierce attack upon all forms of modern historical Jewish scholarship, his deep talmudic learning as reflected in his Commentary on the Pentateuch, and his opposition to all changes in synagogue ritual, set forth in his surviving responsa. [1] Similarly, as Dr. David Singer has recently argued, the religious and intellectual legacy of Ray Kook is being vigorously contested, and he has been portrayed by some "as a paradigmatic modern Orthodox Jew--open, tolerant, and deeply engaged with currents of secular thought," while others "hail him as the messianic Zionist supreme--dreamer of a reborn Jewish state, believer in the imminence of th e final redemption, and upholder of the Jewish people's right to the whole of the Biblical land of Israel." [2] In both instances, each of the opposing camps, not surprisingly, dismisses those features stressed by the other as secondary.

A similar battle seems to be shaping up over the teachings of the Ray. But precisely on this account, I would contend, the real task with regard to the Rav-as, indeed, with regard to Rav Hirsch and Ray Kook-is to avoid the oversimplifications of both the left and the right and arrive at a portrait of the Rav that will do justice to the complex and multi-faceted nature of his teaching.

Shortly after the Rav's passing, Rabbi Norman Lamm, President of Yeshiva University, in a eulogy for the Ray delivered on April 25, 1993, urged his auditors to "guard...against any revisionism, any attempts to misinterpret the Ray's work in both worlds [the world of Torah and the world of Madda]. The Ray was not a lamdan who happened to have and use a smattering of general culture, and he was certainly not a philosopher who happened to be a talmid hakham, a Torah scholar.... We must accept him on his terms, as a highly complicated, profound, and broad-minded personality.... Certain burgeoning revisionisms may well attempt to disguise and distort the Rav's uniqueness by trivializing one or the other aspect of his rich personality and work, but they must be confronted at once." [3]

R. Lamm's phrase "burgeoning revisionisms" is significant. It suggests that the process of revisionism was taking place even as he was speaking. Indeed, we can say that this process-and here I am speaking about revisionism from the "right"-began with the eulogy for the Ray, delivered at the Ray's levayah on hol ha-Mo ed Pesah, April 12, 1993, by his younger brother, the distinguished rabbinic scholar and Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Aaron Soloveitchik. In his powerful eulogy R. Soloveitchik offered the following mashal. "[There are] three physical phenomena in respect to light:... reflection, refraction, diffraction. Reflection... designates the process whereby the rays of the sun pass through a certain medium...which has no light of its own.... Refraction ... involves the bending of rays [of the sun], while in diffraction... the rays of the sun are broken up into the spectrum of colors. Refraction and diffraction both involve the... bending of the rays, except in refraction the rays of the sun are bent on account of passage of the rays without encountering an opaque medium, but in diffraction it encounters an opaque body." [4]

Revisionism and the Rav: The Struggle for the Soul of Modern Orthodoxy

Judaism, Summer, 1999 by Lawrence Kaplan

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