TheRav.Net: Welcome

Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, or the Rav (translation: The Rabbi), as he is generally called by his students, was one of the greatest Jewish leaders and Torah scholars of the 20th century. He possessed many qualities of special relevance to people of our era, including the following:

• He spent enormous energy attempting to show the meaning and relevance of Torah to a 20th century Western audience.

• He was a master of Talmud, Halacha, Bible, and Jewish philosophy. In addition, the Rav had a broad secular education, having earned a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Berlin.

• He was a highly eloquent pedagogue, a riveting speaker, and a brilliant writer. Not every genius is a great communicator. The Rav could communicate myriad aspects of Torah from intricate Talmudic logic to subtle philosophical ideas. Moreover, he was fluent in English.

• The Rav loved his audience and relished the act of teaching.

This website is a collection of resources for study of the Rav’s life and teachings. You can find here books (over 70 of them), articles, sound recordings (hundreds of them), videos, photos, and links to works by the Rav, his students, and scholars of his work. The material is challenging and you may need a dictionary to get through some of it. But it is well worth the effort.

If you have material related to Rabbi Soloveitchik that you would like to disseminate please contact me. This can include notes, recordings, or your own completed writings or works in progress.

Blessings,

Yisrael Kashkin

Click here to listen to The Rav's famous description (from 1974) of how he experienced the Mesorah (Jewish Torah tradition) through the act of teaching (YUTorah.org)

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New Publications/Media

Original Find by therav.net

Ship Manifests of the Rav's Immigration to the US and His Return from Eretz Israel in 1935

Baltic

Books



Vision and Leadership	The Koren Mesorat Harav Siddur


Majesty and Humility: The Thought of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik Reuven Ziegler (Author), Edited by Jacob J. Schacter (Excellent overview for newcomers to the Rav's thought-therav.net)	Lonely Man of Faith by Rabbi Reuven Ziegler.


The Rav Thinking Aloud on the Parsha: Sefer Shemot	Society and Self: On the Writings of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik Professor Gerald J. (Ya’akov) Blidstein

Addendum to the Mesorat HaRav Siddur

Collected by Dr. Arnold Lustiger

Posted with permission

Articles:

Two Dreams by Rav Hershel Schachter

Torahweb.org

Lecture on Leadership
Transcribed by Yitzchak Etshalom

Torah.org

Time Awareness as a Source of Spirituality in the Thought of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik

Jeffrey R. Woolf

Classes:

Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School
From the Rav's Desk - The Published & Unpublished Letters of
Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik z"l

Rav Nati Helfgot, Chair, Departments of Bible and

Jewish Thought

November 19 / December 3 / December 10 / December 17

8:00-9:00 PM EST, at YCT in New York

For more information contact abatalion@yctorah.org

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Webyeshiva.org
Rav Soloveitchik on Prayer
Rabbi Jeffrey Saks
Tuesday 4:00PM EST, online

Oct 23 - Nov 13 2012

A survey of Jewish prayer as discussed in Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik's thought and religious philosophy.

http://www.webyeshiva.org/shiurim.php

Recordings:

Panel on ‘Majesty and Humility: The Thought of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik’ by Rabbi Reuven Ziegler

yutorah.org

Handouts:

ADDENDUM TO KOREN MESORAT HARAV SIDDUR

Quotes from the Rav On the Joys of Religious Experience

Recent/Upcoming Events

Screenings of Lonely Man of Faith Throughout the US

Documentary Preview

Includes video and audio of the Rav

If you have any news or events that you'd like to post here or if you would like to join our mailing list, please email us.

*This website is non-commercial. Links to booksellers are for the convenience of site visitors. We do not receive any commission for books, tapes, or CDs listed here.

We cannot vouch for the cyber-safety of any downloads you make from sites linked to this site.

TheRav.net has received Over 10,000 visits.

Sources for foregoing quotations:

(1) Partial transcript of an address to the RCA Convention, 1975, on the topic of religious conversion. This is a preamble to the class. Transcribed by Eitan Fiorino in mail-jewish.org, from mp3 Rav - Gerus & Mesorah (1) [5053].mp3 )

(2) Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, "Sacred and Profane", Gesher, Vol. 3, No. 1, p. 7 in Besdin, A, Reflections of the Rav, p. 224)

(3) Worship of the Heart: Essays on Jewish Prayer EDITED BY SHALOM CARMY, p. 66 in Prayer and the Beauty of God: Rav Soloveitchik on Prayer and Aesthetics (JOSHUA AMARU, The Torah u-Madda Journal (13/2005)

(4)Joseph B. Soloveitchik, “A Tribute to the Rebbetzen of Talne,” Tradition 17:2, Spring 1978, p. 7

(5) Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Mesorat HaRav Siddur, p. 112-3

Photo on banner was taken by Rabbi Irwin Albert. *Posted with permission.

The Rav circa 1979
(Photo by Rabbi Irwin A. Albert*)

Teaching has a tremendous and very strange impact on me. I simply feel that when I teach Torah, I feel the breath of eternity on my face.

The error of modern representatives of religion is that they promise their congregants the solution to all the problems of life − an expectation which religion does not fulfill. Religion, on the contrary, deepens the problems but never intends to solve them. The grandeur of religion lies in its mysterium tremendum its magnitude and its ultimate incomprehensibility. To cite one example, we may adduce the problem of theodicy, the justification of evil in the world, that has tantalized the inquiring mind from time immemorial till this last tragic decade. The acuteness of this problem has grown for the religious person in essence and dimensions. When a minister, rabbi, or priest attempts to solve the ancient question of Job's suffering through as sermon or lecture, he does not promote religious ends, but, on the contrary, does them a disservice. The beauty of religion with its grandiose vistas reveals itself to men, not in solutions but in problems, not in harmony but in the constant conflict of diversified forces and trends.

The beauty of God is experienced as holiness, as the mysterium magnum, ineffable and unattainable, awesome and holy (nora ve-kadosh), as something that transcends everything comprehensible and speakable, which makes one tremble and experience bliss. Beauty and paradox merge—He is both remote and so near; awesome and lovely, fascinating and daunting, majestic and tender, comforting and frightening, familiar and alien, the beyond of creation and its very essence.

Most of all I learned [from his mother] 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 life—to feel the presence of the Almighty and the gentle pressure of His hand resting upon my frail shoulders.

…the religious person is given not only a duty to follow the halakha but also a value and vision. The person performing the duty seeks to realize this ideal or vision. Kant felt that the duty of consciousness expresses only a "must" without a value. He demanded a routine form of compliance, an "ought" without aiming at a value. As a soldier carries out his duty to the commanding officer, one may appreciate his service or just obey through discipline and orders. Kant's ethics are a "formal ethics", the goal is not important. For us it would be impossible to behave this way. An intelligent person must find comfort, warmth, and a sense of fulfillment in the law. We deal with ethical values, not ethical formalisms. A sense of pleasure must be gained by fulfilling a norm. The ethical act must have an end and purpose. We must become holy.