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_Joseph Soloveitchik,90, Is Dead; Influential Rabbi and Philosopher
by Ari L. Goldman
Rabbi Joseph Dov Soloveitchik, a major Jewish philosopher who
shaped Orthodox Judaism in America through his writing and lectures and
his ordination of more than 2,000 rabbis, died last night at his home in
Brookline, Mass. He was 90.
Sam Hartstein, a spokesman for Yeshiva University, where Rabbi
Soloveitchik taught for more than four decades, said the cause was heart
failure.
Rabbi Soloveitchik, known popularly as "the Rav," and affectionate
Hebrew name for teacher, was widely accepted as the unchallenged leader of
mainstream Orthodoxy and was also respected by the more traditionalist
wings, who regarded him as a great teacher and decider of Jewish law.
Orthodox rabbis around the world called him with queries about how
to apply Jewish law to modern problems. The rabbi's annual discourses,
which he delivered on the anniversary of his father's death, attracted
thousands of listeners and were regarded as the major annual academic
event for American Orthodoxy.
_Opposed Theological Dialogue_
Although much of his work involved reconciling traditional Judaism
with the modern world, Rabbi Soloveitchik opposed Jewish-Christian
dialogue on a theological level. He argued that such conversations should
be restricted to issues of social policy like the needs of the poor and
race relations.
For years, Rabbi Soloveitchik addressed his fellow rabbis at the
annual meeting of the Rabbinical Council of America, the largest of the
country's Orthodox rabbinical organizations.
Sometimes sitting with his feet crossed in front of a table
bearing an open volume of the Talmud, a few bulky reference works and a
glass of milk, he spoke in a relaxed, rather informal manner, waving his
hand in the air to make a point and asking frequent questions of his audience.
A genial man with gray hair and a squared-off beard that fell
about three inches below his chin, Rabbi Soloveitchik came from a long
line of distinguished Talmudic scholars on both sides of his family. His
grandfather, Hayyim Soloveitchik, was the rabbi of Brest-Lotovsk and
brough about a revolution in the methods of Torah scholarship. His
father, Moses, was also a great scholar in Europe and later at Yeshiva
University in New York.
_A Cryptic Figure_
Despite his accomplishments, he was not well known outside
Orthodox Jewish circles, and even within them he remained a somewhat
cryptic figure. The main reason was his reluctance to publish during his
lifetime, a practice that was something of a family tradition, which
admirers attributed to a quest for perfection. In the 1970's, his
published bibliography listed fewer than half a dozen major articles.
But for years he gave major lectures, which lasted two to five
hourse, drew overflow crowds and were described as an American version of
the classical rabbinic legal lession taught by the master of an academy.
He described himself as a shy person and denied that he was an
authority in the usual sense of the word. "I have many pupils," he said,
"I have many disciples, but I never impose my views on anyone."
Rabbi Soloveitchik, the scion of a prominent rabbinical family,
was born in Pruzhan, Poland, in 1903. He spent his early years in the
Soviet state of Byelorussia, where his father, Moses, served as a rabbi.
Until his early 20's, he devoted himself almost exclusively to the study
of the Talmud, the library of Jewish law, lore and wisdom. At the age of
22, he entered the University of Berlin where he majored in philosophy and
was attracted to the neo-Kantian school.
In 1931, he received his doctorate for a dissertation on
epistemology and metaphysics. The same year he married Tonya Lewitt. She
died in 1967.
In 1932 the couple immigrated to the United States, where he
became the rabbi of the Orthodox Jewish community of Boston and founded
the Maimonides School, the first Jewish day school in New England.
In 1941, he came to Yeshiva University's Rabbi Isaac Elchanan
Theological Seminary, where he remained the pre-eminent teacher in the
Talmud until he became ill in the mid-1980's. He held the title of Leib
Merkin professor of Talmud and Jewish philosophy.
He is survived by three children, Atarah Twersky of Brookline,
Tova Lichtenstein of Jerusalem and Rabbi Haym Soloveitchik of Riverdale,
the Bronx; two sisters, Shulamith Meiselman and Anne Gerber, both of
Brookline, a brother, Rabbi Aharon Soloveitchik of Chicago, and several
granchildren and great grandchildren.
A funeral is scheduled for 10:30 A.M. Sunday at the Maimonides
School in Brookline.
-The New York Times, Friday, April 9, 1993, Page A21
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