Sunday, July 13, 2008

Rav Soloveitchik - Ideal of Halachic Man describes Misnagid? Prof. Alan Nadler

While we are on the subject of Rav Soloveitchik's understanding of the Gra and the Baal HaTanya - I though it might be helpful to delve a bit into the related issue of whether Rav Soloveitchik's views are manifestations of the hashkofa of the misnagdim.

I had asked Rav Sternbuch this Shabbos whether he agreed with the Klausenberger Rebbe's description of contemporary chasidus and its leaders as basically as nonthinking/non-intellectual. He responded that it is clear that for most people (not just chassidim) the issues of chassid versus litvak are not understood or even thought about anymore. He agreed that for most people Yiddishkeit is primarily through keeping mitzvos and participating in Jewish life rather than worrying about the nature of tzimtzum or other issues that caused the heated dispute between these two camps. Thus it might be helpful reading about what hashkofa issues were involved in the dispute and whether Rav Soloveitchik seems to accept the idealization of the misnagdim.

Prof. Alan Nadler has raised this question in a thought provoking essay available here.

The philosophical originality of Rabbi Joseph Baer Soloveitchik is widely held to consist primarily in his harmonization of traditional Lithuanian Talmudism with German philosophical idealism. Soloveitchik is heralded for his unusual mastery of these two very different disciplines, particularly for his erudition in culling so richly from them both in formulating his own "modern" Orthodox Jewish philosophy. Personally as well, Soloveitchik is admired as the embodiment of this grand intellectual synthesis, as a kind of model of the "mithnaggedphilosophe."' It is in the first and most celebrated of Soloveitchik's works, the 1944 monograph Ish Ha-halakha (Halakhic Man), more than in any of his other writings, that the composite and synthesizing nature of his religious thinking is most manifest. This work is largely predicated upon the harmonization of the Lithuanian Rabbinic tradition - or the religion of the mithnagdim - with elements of German philosophical idealism. In Halakhic Man, Soloveitchik constructs an ideal religious typology, in a distinctly neo-Kantian epistemological framework, in order to portray his own mithnagdic progenitors, such as Rabbis Hayyim of Brisk, Hayyim of Volozhin and the Gaon Elijah b. Solomon of Vilna.

2 comments :

  1. You have completely lost me. What this has to do with Rav Shternbuch's opinion on whether Jews have lost their desire for a deeper understanding of Torah, or the Misnagdishe derech today is beyond me.

    [If anything, there seems to be a heightened interest in Toras HaNistar because Jews are not satiated by seemingly dry Mussar or the lack of such]

    Rav Soloveitchik spoke (yes, there is a recording) about the differences between Tanya and the Nefesh Hachaim. He did not believe there were mountains between them. At the end of the day, we are talking about Pshat in Kabolo and Zohar. We aren't questioning the value of Kabolo or Zohar. In this regard, I feel the Gro and his Talmidim are not the same as the Mussar laden Misnagdim. The misnaged described by Professor Nadler is perhaps not the classical misnaged.

    I must be dim. The post does not seem coherent.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Isaac Balbin said...

    You have completely lost me. What this has to do with Rav Shternbuch's opinion on whether Jews have lost their desire for a deeper understanding of Torah, or the Misnagdishe derech today is beyond me.
    ==========================
    DT responded

    This post was for those who are interested or might be intested or might not known that these are issues are still issues. Rav Sternbuch was referring to most people - not everyone.
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    IB wrote:

    The misnaged described by Professor Nadler is perhaps not the classical misnaged.

    I must be dim. The post does not seem coherent.
    ------------
    DT responded...

    I am assuming your accusations of incoherence refer to my comments and not that of Prof. Nadler. The issue was to show that the distinctions between the misnagid and chassid are still significant, most people don't think or have awareness that there are significant theological variations and finally that Rav Soloveitchik is possibly not your classic misnagid. You are challenging part of the above by saying that Prof. Nadler was wrong because Rav Soloveitchik was in fact the classic misnagid and Prof. Nadler is describing a new variation of misnagid.

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