This week, I came across a remarkable letter, written by Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik shortly after his Rebbetzin's passing, in 1967. An Israeli schoolteacher who had just taught her students Rav Soloveitchik's inspirational writings on Zionism wrote to him, to ask why he had not actualized his ideals by moving to Israel, and he responded most movingly.
The text of the Hebrew letter is found on Page רנד of מפניני הרב, as well as toward the end of an article available here. Here is my attempt at an English translation:
17 Tammuz 5767 (1967)
Her honour, Madam Miriam Shiloh, שתחיה,
Shalom uBerachah! I request forgiveness for not addressing her letter immediately, and delaying until now. It was difficult for me, and it remains difficult, to write. I am immersed in mourning for the death of my beloved wife, the pupil of my eye and beloved of my soul, of blessed memory. My world has collapsed and is ruined. Even now, I write with tears and with the blood of my torn and agitated heart.
I thank her for her words, and I accept her rebuke willingly. In truth, I have sinned against the Holy Land. I am among those who have been slow. Of course, many causes, which do not depend upon me, have delayed me – but I do not seek an excuse, and I do not justify myself. I have sinned, and the [prisoner's] chain hangs from my neck.
Last year we decided, my wife z"l and I, to come to the Land and to spend six months there, to see the land and the nation dwelling there. But many thoughts are in the heart of man, and what happened happened, and my sighs are many and my heart grieves!
Many of my acquaintances and friends who dwell in the Land and in the Diaspora encourage me to come now. Madam also emphasized in her letter that it is now a propitious time as well as a time of spiritual crisis. But our sages tell us of an "Arch of Accounting" which was situated outside of Jerusalem, because one who takes accounts and finds his account lacking is upset, and regarding Jerusalem it is written, "the joy of the entire earth". How much more so for the "Arch of Black Mourning" in which I am currently found, that it must be outside Jerusalem. How could I now ascend to Jerusalem, when I am a man of a harsh and bitter spirit? G-d is not manifest when one is depressed, upset and pained.
Madam need not justify her words. I, too, am a simple Jew. In the language of the Sages of Yavneh (Berachot 17), I would say: I am a teacher, and many work with the community in the field of Torah education, as teachers. My work is in the large city of New York, in an institution with many students, and their work is in Givat Washington or in another community in a small institution. Whether one does much or little, so long as one directs his heart toward Heaven. The work all of us do is dedicated to nurturing the values of Judaism, the ancestral tradition and the Torah of our masters, authors of the tradition and its sages.
With great respect,
Yosef Dov haLevi Soloveitchik
To this I can add nothing...
Showing posts with label Judaism: Rabbi Soloveitchik. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Judaism: Rabbi Soloveitchik. Show all posts
Thursday, May 14, 2015
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
A personal relationship with Gd
[Note: I've discussed this theme somewhat in my columns on “Avoiding the appearance of showmanship” and "Is religion private if your family sees you?, and in a derashah on Private Religion and Public Religion.]
Rabbi Shalom Carmy hits what is, for me, another home run in his column, “He thought she was drunk,” in the Summer 2010 edition of Tradition. In particular, one part of his article criticizes what I do, sometimes, on this blog: public sharing of religious intimacy.
R' Carmy cites Rav Soloveichik, from a eulogy for Rabbi Zeev Gold:
If it is good for a man, and his heart is full of joy, let him reveal his feelings to God…thank Him and yearn for Him; but not exhibit them to others,lest an alien gaze desecrate this holy of holies. If, to the contrary, it is bad for man, and he is given over to distress, beneath the yoke of suffering and affliction, and fi nds himself abandoned and forlorn—let him confess before God, weep and entreat Him behind the curtain, but let no stranger approach the holy of Holies lest he desecrate through his indifference the sanctity of mute suffering oppressing him (Leviticus 16:17).
I know that this citation doesn’t explain why sharing the intimacy debases it. Further, R’ Carmy does note the need to share that intimacy for pedagogic purposes as well as for our health as social animals. But I think the case for this main point is strong.
To cite myself, from the derashah linked above:
Private religion is Moshe on Har Sinai, Adam and Chavah and Gd in the Garden, a direct relationship that is neither open nor shared, intimate, monogamous, an immanent relationship that bonds each Jew uniquely to Gd. Gd knows me, and I know Gd through my experiences of a lifetime, and no one else on Earth can claim the Gd-experience that I have.
Michah ordered us, והצנע לכת עם אלקיך, walk in צניעות with HaShem. צניעות is not specifically about covering a part of the body, or being humble. צניעות means privacy. We are to walk privately with HaShem, and so experience a faith which is intense and personal.
If our relationship with Gd is shared with others - even spouse, children, students, close friends - then will we ever have an authentic religious experience which is not for sharing, which we don't set about describing in print, which we don't photograph and email to all of our contacts, which is just "me and Gd"?
This matters. It impacts prayer and ritual, obviously. How could I seriously contemplate Gd in Shmoneh Esreih, if I never thought about Gd, if I never communicated with Gd, outside that davening framework?
Less obviously, it also impacts Olam haBa. One of the visions of Olam haBa [the “world to come”, Heaven, etc] I find most authentic is a description of a world in which the soul is fully exposed to Gd, and one can appreciate Gd at whatever level of purification, sensitivity and understanding he achieved in this world. Years ago, when I would imagine this potential future I would worry that I might find it boring. After all – none of the elements of daily life would persist, none of the distractions would be present, none of the usual types of satisfaction would be present. What would I do for eternity, locked in a room (so to speak) with Gd?
Ineed to think about this some more.
Rabbi Shalom Carmy hits what is, for me, another home run in his column, “He thought she was drunk,” in the Summer 2010 edition of Tradition. In particular, one part of his article criticizes what I do, sometimes, on this blog: public sharing of religious intimacy.
R' Carmy cites Rav Soloveichik, from a eulogy for Rabbi Zeev Gold:
If it is good for a man, and his heart is full of joy, let him reveal his feelings to God…thank Him and yearn for Him; but not exhibit them to others,lest an alien gaze desecrate this holy of holies. If, to the contrary, it is bad for man, and he is given over to distress, beneath the yoke of suffering and affliction, and fi nds himself abandoned and forlorn—let him confess before God, weep and entreat Him behind the curtain, but let no stranger approach the holy of Holies lest he desecrate through his indifference the sanctity of mute suffering oppressing him (Leviticus 16:17).
I know that this citation doesn’t explain why sharing the intimacy debases it. Further, R’ Carmy does note the need to share that intimacy for pedagogic purposes as well as for our health as social animals. But I think the case for this main point is strong.
To cite myself, from the derashah linked above:
Private religion is Moshe on Har Sinai, Adam and Chavah and Gd in the Garden, a direct relationship that is neither open nor shared, intimate, monogamous, an immanent relationship that bonds each Jew uniquely to Gd. Gd knows me, and I know Gd through my experiences of a lifetime, and no one else on Earth can claim the Gd-experience that I have.
Michah ordered us, והצנע לכת עם אלקיך, walk in צניעות with HaShem. צניעות is not specifically about covering a part of the body, or being humble. צניעות means privacy. We are to walk privately with HaShem, and so experience a faith which is intense and personal.
If our relationship with Gd is shared with others - even spouse, children, students, close friends - then will we ever have an authentic religious experience which is not for sharing, which we don't set about describing in print, which we don't photograph and email to all of our contacts, which is just "me and Gd"?
This matters. It impacts prayer and ritual, obviously. How could I seriously contemplate Gd in Shmoneh Esreih, if I never thought about Gd, if I never communicated with Gd, outside that davening framework?
Less obviously, it also impacts Olam haBa. One of the visions of Olam haBa [the “world to come”, Heaven, etc] I find most authentic is a description of a world in which the soul is fully exposed to Gd, and one can appreciate Gd at whatever level of purification, sensitivity and understanding he achieved in this world. Years ago, when I would imagine this potential future I would worry that I might find it boring. After all – none of the elements of daily life would persist, none of the distractions would be present, none of the usual types of satisfaction would be present. What would I do for eternity, locked in a room (so to speak) with Gd?
Ineed to think about this some more.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Is religion "private" if your family sees you?
[ I have some big news, but I'm not ready to blog it just yet.]
One of the fun side-effects of blogging is that it makes periodic self-examination fairly easy; like a diary/journal, it allows me to go back to where I was a year ago and look at what I was thinking.
Technically, I can always do that - I have computer files with my derashot and shiurim going back to 1997 - but the blog makes it even easier. To see where I was last Pesach, I just click the sidebar Label, Pesach, and I'm there.
This morning I took a minute to re-read a derashah I delivered last year, on Pesach, regarding private (צנוע) religion and public religion. It was a reaction to the Inquisition of then-presidential candidates Clinton and Obama at Messiah College (a topic I also blogged here).
I talked about our preference for private religion, in terms of not making our religious practice a display for others, while acknowledging that Judaism finds both approaches to religious practice appropriate at different times. When it comes to teaching our children, though, we are instructed to be public, particularly at the Seder. "והגדת לבנך - You shall tell your children," as the Torah admonishes us repeatedly.
In a comment on that derashah, Tzipporah contends that addressing one's family is actually private, rather than public.
Her point is important: Should our spouses, children, siblings, parents, be a natural part of the religious lives we consider to be most private and personal?
I'd suggest not.
As Rav Soloveitchik noted so articulately in his 1964 essay, Confrontation, there is a natural gap between individual human beings, no matter how close we are, because no one can truly know the thoughts, emotions, feelings of another. Shared experiences are not the same as shared lives and shared DNA.
The logos, the language we employ to bridge that gap, to communicate agreement and disagreement, comparison and contrast, is an inherently flawed medium. Language is a product of our context, our life history, our interactions, and so our words are loaded with meaning which we cannot convey to others, no matter how hard we try.
This gap generates a deep-seated loneliness in ever-social Man, a loneliness which can be filled only by a Gd who is יודע מחשבות, One who knows our very thoughts. Religion provides a context for that relationship with Gd, a way to communicate with the Deity who knows us.
In this vision of Religion, any human being other than myself is not a partner in that one-to-One relationship, is not privy to the information conveyed between me and my Creator. And so, any other human being is public.
So to me, any religious action performed before another human being - including one's spouse, one's siblings, one's parents, one's children - is inherently public.
And so the deepest parts of our religious experience (outside of training our children, outside of the Seder and similar educational opportunities) really should be more concealed than revealed, even in the case of our families.
What do you think?
One of the fun side-effects of blogging is that it makes periodic self-examination fairly easy; like a diary/journal, it allows me to go back to where I was a year ago and look at what I was thinking.
Technically, I can always do that - I have computer files with my derashot and shiurim going back to 1997 - but the blog makes it even easier. To see where I was last Pesach, I just click the sidebar Label, Pesach, and I'm there.
This morning I took a minute to re-read a derashah I delivered last year, on Pesach, regarding private (צנוע) religion and public religion. It was a reaction to the Inquisition of then-presidential candidates Clinton and Obama at Messiah College (a topic I also blogged here).
I talked about our preference for private religion, in terms of not making our religious practice a display for others, while acknowledging that Judaism finds both approaches to religious practice appropriate at different times. When it comes to teaching our children, though, we are instructed to be public, particularly at the Seder. "והגדת לבנך - You shall tell your children," as the Torah admonishes us repeatedly.
In a comment on that derashah, Tzipporah contends that addressing one's family is actually private, rather than public.
Her point is important: Should our spouses, children, siblings, parents, be a natural part of the religious lives we consider to be most private and personal?
I'd suggest not.
As Rav Soloveitchik noted so articulately in his 1964 essay, Confrontation, there is a natural gap between individual human beings, no matter how close we are, because no one can truly know the thoughts, emotions, feelings of another. Shared experiences are not the same as shared lives and shared DNA.
The logos, the language we employ to bridge that gap, to communicate agreement and disagreement, comparison and contrast, is an inherently flawed medium. Language is a product of our context, our life history, our interactions, and so our words are loaded with meaning which we cannot convey to others, no matter how hard we try.
This gap generates a deep-seated loneliness in ever-social Man, a loneliness which can be filled only by a Gd who is יודע מחשבות, One who knows our very thoughts. Religion provides a context for that relationship with Gd, a way to communicate with the Deity who knows us.
In this vision of Religion, any human being other than myself is not a partner in that one-to-One relationship, is not privy to the information conveyed between me and my Creator. And so, any other human being is public.
So to me, any religious action performed before another human being - including one's spouse, one's siblings, one's parents, one's children - is inherently public.
And so the deepest parts of our religious experience (outside of training our children, outside of the Seder and similar educational opportunities) really should be more concealed than revealed, even in the case of our families.
What do you think?
Thursday, March 12, 2009
"Rabbi, give me a berachah (blessing)"
Every once in a while, someone asks me to give him a berachah.
Inevitably, my mind jumps to the story told about Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, in which a student approached him and asked him for a berachah. As the story goes, he looked at the student quizzically and asked, “What are you – an apple?”
[I wonder if that story must be taken as a sign of the Rav's skepticism regarding giving a berachah; perhaps it was simply a safek berachos situation?]
There is ample precedent for rabbinic berachot, but by nature and by training, I am inclined to be skeptical about my own ability to give a berachah:
- Why should my tefillah on X’s behalf be more effective than anyone else’s tefillah on his behalf? If anything, it should be less effective! If I am more righteous [as some people bizarrely expect] then Gd judges me more closely than Gd judges others, and if I am less righteous [which I know, in my heart of hearts, is the reality] then I have used up all of my merit in various ways over the years.
- Further, does not the pursuit of berachot indicate a level of superstition?
- And still further, does not the pursuit of berachot indicate this person’s unwillingness to take responsibility for himself?
And so on with several more furthers I don’t have time to articulate at the moment.
But I do find that, on those rare occasions when I am asked to give a berachah, it’s a remarkably moving experience, at least on my end. Maybe that’s because people only request such berachot if they are sincere, but I feel a real connection to the mitbarech (the person requesting the berachah). And I feel an expectation, within myself, that I should make myself worthy of delivering a berachah.
Which leads to the next question: What sort of berachah should I offer?
We actually use the term “berachah” pretty loosely and flippantly – as in the conclusion to a chuppah speech, “My berachah to you is that you should…” [I dislike chuppah speeches, but that’s a topic for another time.] How do you compose a rabbinic berachah?
Our ancestors provided a clue, in the way they designed our prayers and blessings:
- HaShem told Moshe (Sh’mot 3:15), “When you mention My Name, say that I am the Gd of Avraham, the Gd of Yitzchak and the Gd of Yaakov.” And so, our Shemoneh Esreih begins with an appeal to the Divine protection of the Gd of Avraham, the Gd of Yitzchak and the Gd of Yaakov. [Sorry – Gd didn’t mention any matriarchs there. But that’s a topic for another time.]
- And each blessing in Shemoneh Esreih is modeled on specific biblical passages which relate to its theme.
- And for Tefilat haDerech, the Wayfarer’s Prayer, the sages instituted that we should close the blessing by reading pesukim about HaShem’s protection of Yaakov during his travels.
- And when a woman is about to be married, her parents offer her the biblical blessing which Rivkah’s family offered her when she was to marry Yitzchak.
So I opt for a similar approach: Based on the person and his circumstance, I choose a specific pasuk biblical passage, and express it as a prayer. That way it’s personal, while remaining loyal to an existing, holy text.
And I try to be solemn about it… but every once in a while I do wonder what would happen if I would say “Borei Pri haEitz” [the blessing recited before eating an apple].
Inevitably, my mind jumps to the story told about Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, in which a student approached him and asked him for a berachah. As the story goes, he looked at the student quizzically and asked, “What are you – an apple?”
[I wonder if that story must be taken as a sign of the Rav's skepticism regarding giving a berachah; perhaps it was simply a safek berachos situation?]
There is ample precedent for rabbinic berachot, but by nature and by training, I am inclined to be skeptical about my own ability to give a berachah:
- Why should my tefillah on X’s behalf be more effective than anyone else’s tefillah on his behalf? If anything, it should be less effective! If I am more righteous [as some people bizarrely expect] then Gd judges me more closely than Gd judges others, and if I am less righteous [which I know, in my heart of hearts, is the reality] then I have used up all of my merit in various ways over the years.
- Further, does not the pursuit of berachot indicate a level of superstition?
- And still further, does not the pursuit of berachot indicate this person’s unwillingness to take responsibility for himself?
And so on with several more furthers I don’t have time to articulate at the moment.
But I do find that, on those rare occasions when I am asked to give a berachah, it’s a remarkably moving experience, at least on my end. Maybe that’s because people only request such berachot if they are sincere, but I feel a real connection to the mitbarech (the person requesting the berachah). And I feel an expectation, within myself, that I should make myself worthy of delivering a berachah.
Which leads to the next question: What sort of berachah should I offer?
We actually use the term “berachah” pretty loosely and flippantly – as in the conclusion to a chuppah speech, “My berachah to you is that you should…” [I dislike chuppah speeches, but that’s a topic for another time.] How do you compose a rabbinic berachah?
Our ancestors provided a clue, in the way they designed our prayers and blessings:
- HaShem told Moshe (Sh’mot 3:15), “When you mention My Name, say that I am the Gd of Avraham, the Gd of Yitzchak and the Gd of Yaakov.” And so, our Shemoneh Esreih begins with an appeal to the Divine protection of the Gd of Avraham, the Gd of Yitzchak and the Gd of Yaakov. [Sorry – Gd didn’t mention any matriarchs there. But that’s a topic for another time.]
- And each blessing in Shemoneh Esreih is modeled on specific biblical passages which relate to its theme.
- And for Tefilat haDerech, the Wayfarer’s Prayer, the sages instituted that we should close the blessing by reading pesukim about HaShem’s protection of Yaakov during his travels.
- And when a woman is about to be married, her parents offer her the biblical blessing which Rivkah’s family offered her when she was to marry Yitzchak.
So I opt for a similar approach: Based on the person and his circumstance, I choose a specific pasuk biblical passage, and express it as a prayer. That way it’s personal, while remaining loyal to an existing, holy text.
And I try to be solemn about it… but every once in a while I do wonder what would happen if I would say “Borei Pri haEitz” [the blessing recited before eating an apple].
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Faith, Objective and Personal
A wise rabbi once advised me that I would have to choose between “rabbinic social work” and a more intellectual rabbinate. The more I see, though, the more I understand how the two depend on each other, and how the former is, for most people, far more important than the latter. The intellectual is indispensable, but the Torah's address to the personal is far more crucial and makes a far greater impact on our lives – not only in terms of 'feeling good,' but in terms of addressing core matters of Emunah (faith).
For many people, objective intellectual questions like, “How old is the universe - really?” and “Did yetziat mitzrayim happen as theTorah describes it?” are not inherently important. They bother many of us only when we are troubled by more subjective, personal issues.
For many people: When we are spiritually “positive”, when we perceive purpose in life and its pursuits, many of us experience little difficulty in accepting traditional views on these matters of rational analysis.
On the other hand: When we have felt spiritually unsettled, when we have sought Gd and not found, when theodicy and its associated issues have occupied our minds, when we have not seen our meaning and place, then no intellectual answers have sufficed, and these questions have loomed large as challenges to our basic belief in Gd and Torah.
I write these thoughts because I recently came across a great compendium published by the Rabbi J.B. Soloveitchik Institute a few years back, on what would have been the Rav's 100th birthday. It's entitled, “A Study and Program Guide to the Teachings of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik.”
On Page 14, in Michael A. Bierman's biographical essay on the Rav, the author cites an insight from R' Reuven Ziegler, into the Rav's approach:
Thus, the Rav chose to address primarily issues related to the human existential situation: the possibility of experiencing faith within contemporary society, the relationship between the fundamental attitudes of modernity and religiosity, and the experiential crisis of the contemporary believer.
He states clearly at the outset of “The Lonely Man of Faith” that he does not want to deal with the abstract, intellectual side of the problem of faith and reason, but rather with its existential dimension: “Theory is not my concern at the moment. I want instead to focus attention on a human life situation in which the man of faith as an individual concrete being, with his cares and hopes, concerns and needs, joys and sad moments, is entangled...”
That's exactly “it” for me – the experiential crisis, the cares and hopes, concerns and needs, etc. Those are the engines driving my own faith – and, from what I have seen, that of others.
In eleven years in the rabbinate, I have answered many times over the questions of evolution and the like, and I have watched others do so as well, but regardless of how the answers were offered and to what type of audience, I have never seen them as well-received as a strong, well-developed and well-delivered approach to personal spirituality, to prayer, to theodicy, to life.
Lives don't change, in my experience, from insights into the Oneness of Gd or Divine incorporeality, or analyses of the historical and biblical Plishtim, or derashot on Avraham's openness to guests, or pilpul on who is obligated to sit in a Succah. Rather, lives change – and I have seen it – from the way Judaism addresses “ a human life situation in which the man of faith as an individual concrete being, with his cares and hopes, concerns and needs, joys and sad moments, is entangled.”
For many people, objective intellectual questions like, “How old is the universe - really?” and “Did yetziat mitzrayim happen as theTorah describes it?” are not inherently important. They bother many of us only when we are troubled by more subjective, personal issues.
For many people: When we are spiritually “positive”, when we perceive purpose in life and its pursuits, many of us experience little difficulty in accepting traditional views on these matters of rational analysis.
On the other hand: When we have felt spiritually unsettled, when we have sought Gd and not found, when theodicy and its associated issues have occupied our minds, when we have not seen our meaning and place, then no intellectual answers have sufficed, and these questions have loomed large as challenges to our basic belief in Gd and Torah.
I write these thoughts because I recently came across a great compendium published by the Rabbi J.B. Soloveitchik Institute a few years back, on what would have been the Rav's 100th birthday. It's entitled, “A Study and Program Guide to the Teachings of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik.”
On Page 14, in Michael A. Bierman's biographical essay on the Rav, the author cites an insight from R' Reuven Ziegler, into the Rav's approach:
Thus, the Rav chose to address primarily issues related to the human existential situation: the possibility of experiencing faith within contemporary society, the relationship between the fundamental attitudes of modernity and religiosity, and the experiential crisis of the contemporary believer.
He states clearly at the outset of “The Lonely Man of Faith” that he does not want to deal with the abstract, intellectual side of the problem of faith and reason, but rather with its existential dimension: “Theory is not my concern at the moment. I want instead to focus attention on a human life situation in which the man of faith as an individual concrete being, with his cares and hopes, concerns and needs, joys and sad moments, is entangled...”
That's exactly “it” for me – the experiential crisis, the cares and hopes, concerns and needs, etc. Those are the engines driving my own faith – and, from what I have seen, that of others.
In eleven years in the rabbinate, I have answered many times over the questions of evolution and the like, and I have watched others do so as well, but regardless of how the answers were offered and to what type of audience, I have never seen them as well-received as a strong, well-developed and well-delivered approach to personal spirituality, to prayer, to theodicy, to life.
Lives don't change, in my experience, from insights into the Oneness of Gd or Divine incorporeality, or analyses of the historical and biblical Plishtim, or derashot on Avraham's openness to guests, or pilpul on who is obligated to sit in a Succah. Rather, lives change – and I have seen it – from the way Judaism addresses “ a human life situation in which the man of faith as an individual concrete being, with his cares and hopes, concerns and needs, joys and sad moments, is entangled.”
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