Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik

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 clearinghouse of resources for study of the Rav’s life and teachings. You can find here books, articles, tapes, 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 it. But it is well worth the effort.

New Publications/Media

Original Find by therav.net

Ship Manifest of the Rav's Return from Eretz Israel in 1935


And from There You Shall Seek Translated from the Hebrew by Naomi Goldblum	Exalted Evening edited by Menachem Genack

Articles:

Mentor of Generations: Reflections on Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik (YU Commentator)

‘Rav’s’ Haggadah Is Hot Order (Jewish Week)

Recent/Upcoming Events

Screenings of Lonely Man of Faith Throughout the 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.

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)

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.