You may have to register before you can download all our books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
His contributions have inspired his many students and others to revisit his writings and lectures in order to better fathom his work. This collection of essays provides a panoramic view of the many vital subjects on which he held forth, and thus is a superb introduction to the work of this remarkable figure.
For five decades prior to his death in 1993, Rabbi Joseph Dov Soloveitchik was the unchallenged leader of modern Orthodox Judaism in the United States. His understanding of both traditional Judaism and secular philosophy shaped two generations of rabbinic students at Yeshiva University, and charted a new course for American Orthodox Jews. In On Repentance, noted scholar Pinchas Peli has gathered the major points of Rabbi Soloveitchik's teachings on teshuvah (repentance), based on the annual series of lectures on the theme of teshuvah, presented on the anniversary of his father's death. For many Jews, these lectures were the major academic and intellectual event of the year. Outside of his followers however, few were able to experience the genius of Rabbi Soloveitchik. He gave his lectures in Yiddish, and generally refused to publish. Now readers can experience the brilliant thinking of this great teacher and sage.
"Community, Covenant and Commitment, edited by Nathaniel Helfgot, brings to light unpublished manuscripts and material of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, the foremost Orthodox Jewish thinker of the 20th century. It includes close to eighty letters and communications, most never published before, on a wide range of communal, political and theological issues that confronted American Jewry in the twentieth century, including Communal and Public Policy Issues; Academic and Educational Issues; Orthodoxy, the Synagogue and the American Jewish Community; Religious Zionism and the State of Israel; Interreligious Affairs; and Torah, Philosophical and Personal Insights.
The essays in this volume powerfully illustrate the Rav's peerless ability to derive a Jewish understanding of God and the human condition from biblical and halakhic sources.
The Rav here explores the crucial interface between living religious experience and halakhic norms. He analyzes the Amidah, the Shema and other liturgical texts, and considers the tension between human dependence and exaltation.
Comprised of extracts from Soloveitchik's own writings, and from tapes which Weiss translated from the Yiddish and incorporated into the book. Weiss has also extracted from articles and essays from various rabbis and scholars to reconstruct numerous insights of Soloveitchik.
For thousands of years, philosophers have pondered the question what it means to be human. Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, known universally as the Rav--the rabbi par excellence--answers the question in The Emergence of Ethical Man, edited by Michael Berger. Relying on both scientific research and classical Jewish sources, Soloveitchik explains how a thoroughly naturalistic setting could give birth to human personality--and to Judaism's expectation of moral character and self-transcendence. The resulting religious anthropology is a startlingly fresh reading of the early chapters of Genesis, and highlights Judaism's distinctive view among those of other religious traditions.
Rav Hershel Schachter's notes from when he was a student in Rav Soloveitchik's shiur. Published at Rav Schachter's behest, and reviewed by him before publication.
"The present volume is a translation of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik's classic essay, "U-Vikkashtem mi-Sham." Drafted in the 1940's as a companion to his earlier treatise Halakhic Man, this powerful and wide-ranging work was published in Hebrew only in 1978. Drawing its title from Deuteronomy 4:29 - "And from there you shall seek the Lord your God, and you shall find Him if you search for Him with all of your heart and all of your soul" - and framed by the evocative metaphors of the Song of Songs, the essay charts the individual's search for God, a quest which culminates in the stage of devekut, cleaving to Him." "The human being initially seeks God by examining the natural and spiritual wor...