By Emily Goldberg, Editor-in-Chief
The mesorah (tradition) of Rav Joseph B. Soloveitchik surrounds the students of Yeshiva University. Not only were many of our rebbeim once students of the Rav, but professors on both the Wilf and Beren campuses have had the privilege of learning directly from his talmidim (students), and by teaching us, they continue to pass on his Torah outlook to generations of YU students. His legacy continues to flourish within the walls and batei midrash of YU, and his philosophy of a Modern Orthodox lifestyle is one the YU community strives to embody each and every day.
Rav Soloveitchik was born on February 27, 1903 in Pruzhany, Belarus. His grandfather, Rav Chaim of Brisk, attended and gave shiurim at the yeshiva of Volozhin, and developed the Brisker method, a “conceptual approach to Talmud Torah,” which the Rav followed and embodied throughout his lifetime. In 1932, the Rav moved to Boston, Massachusetts, and in 1941, became the Rosh Yeshiva of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS), commuting to NY from Boston to give his shiur at YU each week.
In honor of the Rav’s yahrzeit, which is on the 18 of Nissan, the YU Observer interviewed a few of his talmidim about what it was like to be in his shiur.
Transmitting Torah through Generations | Rabbi Menachem Genack
Rabbi Menachem Genack, CEO of the Orthodox Union’s Kosher Division and a Rosh Yeshiva at RIETS, attended the Rav’s shiur at the Moriah shul on the Upper West Side while in high school. He began attending the Rav’s shiur as a YU student in 1966. “I never graduated from the Rav’s shiur – even once I was delivering shiurim of my own, I would always try to attend the Rav’s shiur, until he stopped in the early ‘80s,” Rabbi Genack told the YU Observer.
Rabbi Genack said that in his shiur, the Rav would sometimes bring in his grandfather’s notebooks so his students could see the record of the shiurim he delivered in the Volozhin Yeshiva, alternating with the Netziv, who led the yeshiva for almost four decades.
“Being in the Rav’s presence was frightening but invigorating,” Rabbi Genack told the YU Observer. “One felt that one was listening in on the mesorah, the transmission of the Torah through the generations.” He added, “When the Rav would quote his father Rabbi Moshe in the name of his grandfather Rav Chaim, one sensed how the Rav was a link to a storied and sacred tradition, one which literally inspired awe.”
The Ramban and Raavad were important rishonim to the Rav; he saw them as forebearers of the Brisker tradition. “He once commented that had he not known that the Ramban had lived first, he would have accused the Ramban of having plagiarized from him,” Rabbi Genack said.
Rabbi Genack added that in his shiur, the Rav covered a lot of ground, exposing his students to many mefarshim (commentaries), including Rashi, Tosfot and the Rambam. He had a deep knowledge of Shas (the six sections of the oral Torah) and followed Volozhin’s Gemara curriculum, which started by learning Brachos and ended with Uktzin.
“Anybody who heard the Rav deliver a shiur always remembers the first shiur because of the impact he made on his audience,” Rabbi Genack said. “It was not only the content, but the style of the delivery which made such an impression, and of course the Rav was a master orator.”
“The Rav was able to convey the vitality of the mesorah, and his commitment to the mesorah as well as his integrity and intellectual honesty shone through.”
After being asked a difficult question, it was “typical” for the Rav to come to shiur the next day and announce that everything he had said the previous day was wrong. “This was typical of the Rav’s intellectual honesty and humility,” Rabbi Genack said.
Rabbi Genack added that the Rav loved YU. “Because of his background and education, he was unique in that he could serve as a model for Orthodox Jewish professionals who had both Torah and secular educations,” he said. “It was important for the Rav that he could speak to that constituency, and Yeshiva University was the platform that enabled him to do so.”
Prominent figures such as Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook, the first Chief Rabbi of pre-state Israel, and the Ponevezher Rav, Rosh Yeshiva of the Ponevezher Yeshiva, admired Rav Soloveitchik; Rav Kook said that listening to him speak was like listening to Rav Chaim Brisker himself and the Ponovezher Rav described him as “the greatest Rosh Yeshiva in the world.”
“There was a universal recognition by genuinely great Torah scholars that the Rav was singular and unique,” Rabbi Genack said. “With his extraordinary intellectual and pedagogical talents, the Rav preserved the tradition of Torah and expanded its realm in America, thereby allowing an ancient tradition to speak to and prosper in a new and inhospitable environment.”
Learning with the Rav Changed One’s Perspective on Torah | Rabbi Yosef Blau
Rabbi Yosef Blau, Mashgiach Ruchani at YU, studied in the Rav’s shiur from 1957-1965. For the next two years, he worked at Maimonides School, the Rav’s Modern Orthodox day school in Massachusetts, until he came back to New York and rejoined the Rav’s shiur from 1977-1985.
Rabbi Blau told the YU Observer that the atmosphere of the Rav’s shiur changed over time. “When I first attended the shiur, if one didn’t prepare properly or used faulty logic, the Rav reacted strongly,” Rav Blau said. “As he aged, the Rav became softer.”
The Rav would always encourage his students to think on their own. Once, the Rav told Rabbi Blau he was not satisfied with how Rabbi Blau was reading the Gemara, so he called on Rabbi Blau to read during every shiur until he was satisfied with Rabbi Blau’s reading.
“The goal of the shiur was not only to say his insights, but primarily to teach the students how to analyze the Gemara and the rishonim,” Rabbi Blau said.
When the Rav was unhappy with his own interpretation of a Gemara, he would stop shiur to think, and would often come back the next week with a new approach to what he had taught. “He commented to us that he had spent many hours thinking about the problem, and he thought that we should have as well, instead of relying on him,” Rabbi Blau said.
Anyone who was in the Rav’s shiur was amazed by his brilliance, Rabbi Blau told the YU Observer. “One’s entire perspective of Torah changed,” Rabbi Blau said. “The Rav communicated the primacy of Torah study while appreciating all knowledge. His thinking consistently accepted two divergent perspectives as valuable.”
The Rav’s presence in YU is one of the many factors that gave YU its prominence. “At a time when secular studies, particularly the sciences, were seen as the pinnacle of knowledge, exposure to the Rav made one appreciate the depth of Torah,” Rabbi Blau said. “My observance of mitzvot was transformed; the details became meaningful.”
Rabbi Blau added, “In retrospect he simultaneously overwhelmed us with his brilliance while convincing some of us that we are capable of continuing the mesorah.”
The Greatest Proponent of the ‘Torah U’Madda’ Approach | Rabbi Ephraim Kanarfogel
Rabbi Ephraim Kanarfogel, a professor at YU’s Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies, was in the Rav’s shiur for four years in the mid to late ‘70s, both as an undergraduate at Yeshiva College (YC) and as a part of YU’s semicha program.
“From the first moment in the shiur, you learned what the Rav zt”l expected for preparation (everything), and how he wanted each word of the Gemara and the rishonim analyzed precisely (which he showed us how to do),” Rabbi Kanarfogel told the YU Observer. “However, it quickly became clear that the Rav was able to propose a strikingly new insight or approach (and often more than one) in each and every shiur, a seemingly impossible feat.”
He added, “The Rav was an incredible genius.”
Rabbi Kanarfogel described the Rav as “exacting,” most of all on himself. If his analysis of a sugya was lacking, the Rav always reworked it on the spot as the discussion went around the shiur, in which some of those in the room had been his students for a decade or even two.
The Rav once came back from shiur a week and a half after having surgery, and was handed a set of Rambam “that you and I would probably have had trouble reading.” Yet, the Rav proceeded to read the Rambam “flawlessly and with great emphasis,” Rabbi Kanarfogel told the YU Observer.
“The Rav knew everything by heart (and especially the Rambam), not simply because of his photographic memory, but because he read everything so carefully and intensely and then reviewed it, until he literally knew it by heart,” Rabbi Kanarfogel said. “And that was the standard which he hoped his students could achieve as well.”
The Rav stressed “mind over matter,” covering all of Shas with the rishonim, leading achronim, philosophy, kabbalah and all other kinds of disciplines in both Torah and the humanities. “No matter what else was happening on a physical or metaphysical level, Torah learning required absolute focus and dedication,” Rabbi Kanarfogel said of the Rav. “Without saying the words ‘Torah U’Madda’ in the shiur or discussing this concept (in general, the Rav never focused on anything but limmud ha-Torah during the shiur), the Rav was the greatest proponent and paragon of that approach.”
He added, “I was convinced that the Rav thought that one should learn as much of Shas as possible, have an academic field and training, and somehow bring that all together.”
Rabbi Kanarfogel said that his work on the rishonim was “tremendously affected and improved” by the time he spent in the Rav’s shiur.
“Witnessing all of this affected my own frumkeit in a most positive way, for the rest of my life,” he said. “To know the Rav, and to have learned with him is to fully understand and appreciate the bracha of baruch shechalak mechachmato lireiav (blessed is He Who shares His wisdom with those who fear Him).”
Photo Caption: A picture of the Rav giving his first shiur at Stern College for Women (SCW) hanging in the SCW beit midrash.
Photo Credit: Eliana Diamond