Joseph Dov Soloveitchik

Joseph Ber Soloveitchik

A discussion of the meaning of a Jewish life of faith in the modern world uses personal testimony, Kierkegaardian reflections, and an extended commentary to look at faith in politics, business, science, and other areas. Reprint.

The Lonely Man Of Faith

The Rav here explores the crucial interface between living religious experience and halakhic norms. He analyzes the Amidah, the Shema and other liturgical texts, and considers the tension between human dependence and exaltation.

Essays on Jewish Prayer

Worship of the Heart

"The present volume is a translation of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik's classic essay, "U-Vikkashtem mi-Sham." Drafted in the 1940's as a companion to his earlier treatise Halakhic Man, this powerful and wide-ranging work was published in Hebrew only in 1978. Drawing its title from Deuteronomy 4:29 - "And from there you shall seek the Lord your God, and you shall find Him if you search for Him with all of your heart and all of your soul" - and framed by the evocative metaphors of the Song of Songs, the essay charts the individual's search for God, a quest which culminates in the stage of devekut, cleaving to Him." "The human being initially seeks God by examining the natural and spiritual worlds. But this search fails; hence God must reveal Himself and express His will. Rabbi Soloveitchik explicates the contrast between these two different modes of experiencing the divine: the natural consciousness, marked by freedom and creativity, and the revelational consciousness, marked by compulsion and discipline. The remainder of the work elaborates on this dialectic, exploring such themes as the imitation of God, devekut, mercy and justice, trust and fear, love and awe, the rule of intellect, elevation of the body, the perpetuity of God's word, and creation and revelation." "And From There You Shall Seek is Rabbi Soloveitchik's fullest and most elaborate examination of religious consciousness and the dynamics of religious experience. Its presentation of the challenging interplay between cultural creativity, religious practice, and spiritual quest is sure to enrich the contemporary reader." --Book Jacket.

And from There You Shall Seek

Joseph B. Soloveitchik

The Lonely Man of Faith

Comprised of extracts from Soloveitchik's own writings, and from tapes which Weiss translated from the Yiddish and incorporated into the book. Weiss has also extracted from articles and essays from various rabbis and scholars to reconstruct numerous insights of Soloveitchik.

Discourses on Fundamental Theological Issues in Judaism

Insights of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik

David Holzer

Transcripts of Personal Converstaions with Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik

The Rav Thinking Aloud

Essays on Purim and Hanukkah

Days of Deliverance

Festival of Freedom, the sixth volume in the series MeOtzar HoRav, consists of ten essays on Passover and the Haggadah drawn from the treasure trove left by the late Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, widely known as "the Rav." For Rabbi Soloveitchik, the Passover Seder is not simply a formal ritual or ceremonial catechism. Rather, the Seder night is "endowed with a unique and fascinating quality, exalted in its holiness and shining with a dazzling beauty." It possesses profound experiential and intellectual dimensions, both of them woven into the fabric of halakhic performance. Its central mitzvah, sippur yetzi'at Mitzrayim, recounting the exodus, is extraordinarily multifaceted, entailing study and teaching, storytelling and symbolic performance, thanksgiving and praise.

Essays on Pesah and the Haggadah

Festival of Freedom

"This essay, originating in a speech delivered in 1956 at an Israel Independence Day celebration, discusses the religious significance of the creation of the State of Israel and the obligation that its existence imposes upon Jews."--BOOK JACKET.

Listen - My Beloved Knocks

Halakhic Man--originally published in Hebrew in 1944 and appearing for the first time in English translation--is considered to be Rabbi Soloveitchik's most important statement. A unique, almost unclassifiable work, its pages include a brilliant exposition of Mitnaggedism, of Lithuanian religiosity, with its emphasis on Talmudism; a profound excursion into religious psychology and phenomenology; a pioneering attempt at a philosophy of Halakhah; a stringent critique of mysticism and romantic religion--all held together by the force of the author's highly personal vision. Exuding intellectual sophistication and touching upon issues fundamental to religious life, Rabbi Soloveitchik's exploration, in sum, seeks to explain the inner world of the Talmudist--or as he is referred to typologically, halakhic man--in terms drawn from Western culture. This book brings to the English-reading world a significant work by one of the most profound Jewish thinkers of this century.

Halakhic Man

One of the classics of modern Jewish thought, Kol Dodi Dofek is now translated into English and titled Fate and Destiny: From the Holocaust to the State of Israel. Rabbi Soloveitchik presents an extended theological meditation on the Holocaust and the rise of the State of Israel, a profound examination of the Jewish "covenant of faith" and the "covenant of fate and destiny" which links all Jews, religious and irreligious and non-religious. This covenant of faith manifests itself in shared circumstances, shared responsibility and shared activity. Fate and destiny likewise links all Jews, but while fate is thrust upon the Jews, destiny is freely chosen by the individual Jew and the Jewish people by adopting a Torah lifestyle and possesses both significance and purpose.

From Holocaust to the State of Israel

Fate and Destiny

Reflections on the Tish'ah Be-Av Kinot

The Lord is Righteous in All His Ways

For thousands of years, philosophers have pondered the question what it means to be human. Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, known universally as the Rav--the rabbi par excellence--answers the question in The Emergence of Ethical Man, edited by Michael Berger. Relying on both scientific research and classical Jewish sources, Soloveitchik explains how a thoroughly naturalistic setting could give birth to human personality--and to Judaism's expectation of moral character and self-transcendence. The resulting religious anthropology is a startlingly fresh reading of the early chapters of Genesis, and highlights Judaism's distinctive view among those of other religious traditions.

The Emergence of Ethical Man

Focus on family relationships between husbands and wives, parents and children.The essays develop a Jewish theory of marriage and sexuality, parenthood and the duty to honor and revere one's parents.

Joseph Dov Soloveitchik

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