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

I, therefore, find myself in agreement with the view of Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein, the son-in-law and one of the leading disciples of the Rav, who forcefully argues that Rav's mahshavah was "neither an extension nor an expansion of an existing tradition, but a genuine innovation.... The areas of experience explored, the mode and level of inquiry, the resources employed, the problems formulated, above all, the ideas and emotions expressed--these, indeed, constitute, conjunctively, a new departure." [12]

If in the first section of Nefesh ha-Rav, R. Schachter downplays the Rav's originality, in the second section, consisting of a series of essays devoted to major issues that the Rav dealt with time and again in the course of his long career, R. Schachter minimizes or omits altogether the more strictly philosophical aspects of the Rav's thought. Consider the essay, "Concerning the Commandment 'And You Shall Walk in His Ways,"' where R. Schachter very finely sets forth and elaborates upon practical consequences that the Rav drew from the principle of imitatio Dei, in particular, that just as God is unique so each individual should strive to be unique, and that just as God is a Creator so should each individual be a creator. What he does not explain, however, is the Rav's philosophical understanding of the principle of imitatio and, more specifically, his conception of the nature of the divine attributes that we are commanded to imitate.

An inquiry into the matter quickly reveals that the Rav grounds his own understanding of imitatio, as he states in U-Vikashtem mi-Sham and other essays, upon Maimonides' famous discussion of the divine attributes of action in the Guide of the Perplexed I:54. This inquiry further reveals that the Rav, in his own analysis of this Maimonidean doctrine, argues that for Maimonides the attributes of actions are to be seen as infinite, teleological ethical ideals, compounded of thought, will, and action, an argument heavily indebted to Hermann Cohen's interpretation of Maimonides found both in Religion of Reason and in his essay, "Characteristik das Ethik Maimunis."

Indeed, one can understand how the Rav extends the imperative of imitatio to include uniqueness and creativity only in light of his philosophic understanding of the divine attributes of action. After all, the commandment of imitatio refers to divine attributes of action such as God's loving kindness, righteousness, and justice. What is the basis for the claim that man also ought to imitate God's creativity or His uniqueness?

With reference to creativity, an answer is readily available. As the Ray himself suggests, all the divine actions are expressions of the infinite divine creativity. Conversely, "the creation of the world is an ethical act, and a person is [consequently] obligated to imitate God by devoting himself to creative actions." [13]

The Rav's demand that man imitate God's uniqueness is more problematic. For, as Maimonides emphasizes, divine uniqueness belongs not to the realm of the attributes of actions, but to those of essence. God's uniqueness, together with His oneness and necessary existence, are thus signified by the Tetragrammaton, the articulated name (skem ha-meforash), as distinguished from the epithets (kinuyyim) which signify the attributes of action. How, then, may the divine uniqueness be imitated?