Chumash Mesoras Harav – Bamidbar

The latest installment of the Chumash with commentary by R. Yosef Dov Soloveitchik zt”l is now available for purchase. Like its three predecessors, the volume on Bamidbar gleans from the vast oeuvre of the Rav, as he is known to many, culling sources not known or readily available to the vast majority of those interested in his thought.

When Chazal tell us that the two pesukim of vayehi binso’a ha-aron (Bamidbar 10:35-36) are a sefer unto themselves, they were doing more than commenting on the need for the inverted letters nun that frame them. Those lines are the fulcrum between the two ends of Bamidbar – the optimistic, forward looking sections until that point, and the darkness and brooding silence of the end of the sefer. Almost four decades go by in those parshios in which the old generation essentially waits to die. The silence is punctuated only by an occasional episode, and a stirring to life at the end of the period.The deeply analytic, pensive qualities of Rav Soloveitchik’s personality make Chumash Bamidbar particularly well suited for his thinking.

One of my favorite sections deals with the makom ha-chetach, the precise episode that divides, in which the pendulum changes direction from expectation of a triumphant march into the Promised Land to the beginning of the end of the generation that left Egypt. This is what he says about Kivros HaTa’avah:

Why did Moses now feel so discouraged? Why didn’t he offer prayers for the people, as was his practice in earlier situations this kind? The people had committed no murder, no sexual promiscuity, no robbery… The incident of Kivros Hata’avah differed greatly from that of the Golden Calf. The making the calf was the result of a great primitive fright. The people thought Moses was dead; they woe afraid of the desert and did not know what the future held in store for them. Overwhelmed loneliness and terror, they violated the precept of avodah zarah, idolatry. There were mitigating circumstances: they wanted the Golden Calf to substitute for Moses, as the Rishonim explain.

At Kivros Hata’avah, we encounter idolatry in a different sense. One must distinguish between avodah zarah as a ceremony or ritual, and as a pagan way of life. Paganism is not only the word of an idol; it encompasses more—a certain lifestyle. The pagan cries out for variety, for boundlessness, for unlimited lust and insatiable desire, for the demonic dream of total conquest, of drinking the cup of pleasure to its dregs. The pagan way of life is the very antithesis of Judaism…When people reach out for the unreachable, for the orgiastic and hypnotic, they do not violate prohibition of avodah zarah, but they adopt the pagan way of life—and the Torah hates the pagan way of life more than it hates the idol.

My friend Dr. Arnold Lustiger has been a perfect choice to shepherd this important project – perhaps because, rather than despite the fact that he never studied with R. Soloveitchik during his lifetime, nor did he attend YU. Like many others who learned in the more right-leaning yeshivos, Dr. Lustiger felt that there was an element of sophistication and breadth missing in the hashkafic part of his chinuch. When he was first exposed to R. Soloveitchik’s thought, he knew that he had found a thinker who offered what he longed for. He never looked back. Because he did not hail from YU, he has been able to sit out the internecine battles between those who claim to know the “true” R. Soloveitchik. Dr. Lustiger, therefore, does not have to choose between the Rav as Talmudist, philosopher, darshan, translator of R. Chaim into the lingua franca of America, or trailblazer of a new path. Dr. Lustiger finds pieces that show all the variegated strands in R. Soloveitchik’s personality, and brings them together in this Chumash. 

Dr. Lustiger’s success as a YU-outsider in publishing so much of R. Soloveitchik points to another important phenomenon: with the passage of time, R. Soloveitchik’s influence has spread to parts of the community that by and large ignored him during his lifetime. His chidushei Torah have found there way into more and more of the haredi yeshivos. 

The Soloveitchk Chumash may contribute to the next step. It (and his machzorim, also edited by Dr. Lustiger) will now introduce the thought of R. Soloveitchik to yeshiva-trained laypeople, some of them who still do not realize what a delight it will be.

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13 Responses

  1. mycroft says:

    “Dr. Lustiger’s success as a YU-outsider in publishing so much of R. Soloveitchik points to another important phenomenon: with the passage of time, R. Soloveitchik’s influence has spread to parts of the community that by and large ignored him during his lifetime. His chidushei Torah have found there way into more and more of the haredi yeshivos”

    What has happened in North America that the Ravs hashkafic influence has decreased and thus it is easier for people to recognize his undisputed gadlus in Torah even while rejecting his hashkafa. A reason why IMO a JO would not have published today the obituary that they did for the Ravs ptirah. When the Rav was niftar his ideas had substantial following in North America and thus a threat,and needed to be fought against.Today he has been limited to his undisputed role as a leading mechanech and gadol .btorah.

    Of course  in halacha lemaaseh he was always tacitly accepted such as his redesign of the pens that are used in schechita in early 60s. There were animal rights objections and the Rav redesigned the pens.

    • joel rich says:

      What has happened in North America that the Ravs hashkafic influence has decreased and thus it is easier for people to recognize his undisputed gadlus in Torah even while rejecting his hashkafa.

       

      ========================

      Sadly I must agree that this seems anecdotally accurate as far as the masses are concerned

      kt

      • Mycroft says:

        JoelI might argue that the statement is even more likely to be true among elite, eg those receiving smicha, RY, yeshiva students, than it is among the masses.

      • dr. bill says:

        Were it only the masses!  I have little insight into how the masses felt or now feel about the Rav ztl.  Sadly, many leaders on the right have recast the Rav in their image.  Many on the left have argued that were the Rav still with us, given our current situation, he would certainly have taken such and such a position, positions they embrace with an annoying certainty that the Rav often eschewed.
        My own suspicion, is that we live in an era where the Rav’s insightful/brilliant but short derashot have replaced his more philosophical but lengthy essays as the texts that define his legacy.  What he delivered to talmidim in the yeshiva, unadulterated brisker conceptual analysis, and his deeply philosophic writings published largely prior to his death, have been superseded by volumes of material delivered, but rarely in writing, to a variety of less trained audiences to whom he spoke.  Even in shiur, given his desire to teach not just present torah, he forbade recording for obvious reasons.
         
        In one regard, I agree with Joel’s comment.  Except for his published drashot on the state of Israel – five derashot and kol dodi dofek – his other drashot, especially his shorter comments on the chumash and other texts, were entirely uncontroversial, hashkafically.  Given that these shorter comments form the basis of much that has been written, I could easily see how they will attract a wider audience to his Torah.

      • mycroft says:

        “My own suspicion, is that we live in an era where the Rav’s insightful/brilliant but short derashot have replaced his more philosophical but lengthy essays as the texts that define his legacy.  What he delivered to talmidim in the yeshiva, unadulterated brisker conceptual analysis, and his deeply philosophic writings published largely prior to his death, have been superseded by volumes of material delivered, but rarely in writing, to a variety of less trained audiences to whom he spoke. ”

        Generally agree. IMO it would be as if someone would define the Torah of Rav Moshe from  an               analysis of Rav Moshes divrei Torah while ignoring Igr es Moshe, or  the Chafetz Chaim by solely focusing on Mishna Berura while ignoring  Shmiras  Halashon.

        I wonder  and have a different hunch as to  why an analysis of the Ravs positions often relies on his speeches/comments rather than decisions he made during his lifetime.

    • Steve Brizel says:

      How is this comment relevant at all.to the Sefer that is under dis mission as opposed to your often stated and disputed claims about RYBS and reliance upon documents that you studiously refuse to identify for those interested?

  2. joel rich says:

    I urge anyone who has the time to listen to the original recording (transcripts are available but imho they don’t hold a candle to listening)
    Behaaloscha – Shlach – Farewell to Rabbi Klavan – RCA Convention –

    Speaker:
    Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik

     

    http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/767710/rabbi-joseph-b-soloveitchik/behaaloscha-shlach-farewell-to-rabbi-klavan-rca-convention-/

     

    The first time I heard it I realized I had come into contact with an intellect and a soul in a different league.

    KT
    Joel Rich

  3. dr. bill says:

    Rabbi Adlerstein, you capture the nature of Dr. Lustiger’s work accurately and succinctly.  One minor question.  what do you mean by “translator of R. Chaim into the lingua franca of America”??   Clearly his embrace of secular knowledge and the significance of the State of Israel were departures from the traditions of Brisk that he thought a changing world required.  And clearly he extended the scope of brisker methodology into many new areas of jewish thought.  But I could not sense any difference between his shiurim which (by my day) were given in the linqua franca of america to his yartzeit and teshuvah drashot given in yiddish.  If you mean he was primarily a perpetrator of the brisker tradition versus a trailblazer, then i would only say, he unlike many who dispute his legacy would not acknowledge the dichotomy.  

     

    • mycroft says:

      “Clearly his embrace of secular knowledge and the significance of the State of Israel were departures from the traditions of Brisk that he thought a changing world required.  And clearly he extended the scope of brisker methodology into many new areas of jewish thought. ”

      AGREED!!!!

      “But I could not sense any difference between his shiurim which (by my day) were given in the linqua franca of america to his yartzeit and teshuvah drashot given in yiddish.”

      Since I     dont know Yiddish can’t comment,but I have heard similarly.

      ” If you mean he was primarily a perpetrator of the brisker tradition versus a trailblazer, then i would only say, he unlike many who dispute his legacy would not acknowledge the dichotomy. ”

      He was both a perpetrator of brisker tradition and a trailblazer. Believed in both. I believe to the extent that anyone denies either aspect of the Rav they are engaging in revisionism. The Rav was very much aware of how he differed from Rav Chaim. Of course, IMO one can make the argument that the differences  in dealing with Rav Chaims legacy started a generation earlier with major differences in attitude between Rav Moshe and Rav Velvel.

  4. Steve Brizel says:

    Great article! I agree wholeheartedly with R Adlerstein’s assessment of the Sefer and more particularly Dr Lustiger.

  5. Raymond says:

    I do not understand why the Chareidi world apparently does not stress Jewish theology in their places of higher Torah learning.  Also of continued puzzlement to me, is why the yeshivot of all Orthodox varieties stress the study of the Talmud so much more than our Tanakh.  It seems obvious to me that the Tanakh, especially our Chumash, represents the very core, the most indispensable part of our religion and way of life.   And as for Jewish theology, I can think of very few Orthodox Jewish theologians who have been alive in my lifetime.  The only two names that come immediately to my mind are Rav Soloveitchik, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, and Rabbi Jonathan Sacks.

    I recently purchased Rabbi Lustiger’s compilation of commentaries on BaMidbar by Rav Soloveitchik, and I own the first three books as well.  I am extremely eager to tackle all of those books, and anything else written by the great Rav, but have only delayed doing so because I am still immersed in the works of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, whose complete mastery of the English language coupled with his brilliant theological insights and vast knowledge, makes reading his works simply irresistible.

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