Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein and Academic Talmud Study

 https://etzion.org.il/sites/default/files/2022-05/Rabbi_Aharon_Lichtenstein_and_Academic_T.pdf

It is well-known that he studied English literature at Harvard, and he never concealed the fruits of those studies; to the contrary, he incorporated them into his spiritual and educational doctrine, both written and oral. The first four chapters of By His Light are based on lectures he delivered to English-speaking students during their first year at Yeshivat Har Etzion, and the book attests reliably to the yeshiva’s general intellectual and educational atmosphere. I will cite a few short examples from these chapters, allowing readers to absorb some of the music that students at Yeshivat Har Etzion absorbed from Rabbi Lichtenstein’s classes and discourses.

Elsewhere in the book, he writes:This activist approach … parallels the activist Jewish approach with respect to spiritual endeavors. In Christian theology there is a time-honored tradition—rooted in the words of  Paul and transmitted by Augustine, Luther and others—that sees human redemption as being dictated solely from Above. In Luther’s formulation, any human attempt to achieve spiritual or ethical perfection is a grave error, for it bespeaks arrogance (121)