Word: rav
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Soloveitchik, 81, is known to his devotees as "the Rav," a Hebrew term of honor that means he is "the Rabbi." (Less reverential Jews on the right wing of Orthodoxy use just his initials "J.B.") As professor of Talmud since 1941 at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary in New York City, Soloveitchik has prepared nearly 1,500 men for ordination. By some estimates, this is the largest number of rabbis trained by any sage of the past millennium. The group makes up the majority of the North American Orthodox rabbis now serving in synagogues. Neither the Conservative...
...major manifesto published in Hebrew in 1944. The second, just issued for the High Holy Days, is Soloveitchik on Repentance (Paulist Press; 320 pages; $11.95). Compiled by an Israeli disciple of Soloveitchik's, Pinchas Peli, Repentance is based on transcriptions of Yom Kippur discourses that the Rav delivered in New York City over twelve years. Reviewing the earlier Hebrew edition of Repentance, Chicago's Reform rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf declared that Soloveitchik is "more and more obviously the teacher of the time. If I am not mistaken, people will still be reading him in a thousand years...
...Kippur discourses, Soloveitchik explores the nature of humanity's less exalted side: sinfulness. As the Rav sees it, the intellect plays hardly any role in the soul's move from sin toward repentance, nor is the "ethical sense" very powerful. Rather, says Soloveitchik, contrition is an "aesthetic experience" of revulsion against sin's corruption...
...Repentance book comes not from a Jewish house but a Roman Catholic one, evidence of the Rav's universality. Says Father Lawrence Boadt, an editor for Paulist Press: "We thought this would be a very effective book for Christians. Soloveitchik is one of the greatest mystical thinkers in the United States." Catholic enthusiasm for the book is also significant because in 1964, during the Second Vatican Council, Soloveitchik announced his opposition to theological discussions between Jews and Christians. Interfaith talks, he wrote in one of his rare essays, must be limited to secular topics. Though his policy encourages some...
...second Adam humbly quests for God. Both Adams exist within each person and are mandated by God, Soloveitchik holds, but in modern times the first Adam threatens to overwhelm the second, and has even become "demonic." When the second Adam begins to speak the language of faith, writes the Rav, he "finds himself lonely, forsaken, misunderstood, at times even ridiculed by Adam the first, by himself...