Soloveitchik on Family Relationships. . - Reviews - Family Redeemed: Essays on Family Relationships - book review

Judaism, Fall, 2001 by Lawrence Kaplan

Family Redeemed: Essays on Family Relationships. By RABBI JOSEPH B. SOLOVEITCHIK edited by DAVID SHATZ and JOEL WOLOWELSKY. Toras HaRav Foundation, n.p., 2000.

The book before us is Volume One of the MeOtzar HoRav Series: Selected Writings of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. As Professor David Shatz and Dr. Joel Wolowelsky, the editors of this important new collection of essays by Rabbi Soloveitchik, better known simply as the Rav, note in their Preface: "Although many of Rabbi Soloveitchik's writings and discourses have been published over the years, much additional material, rich and evocative, remains in handwritten manuscripts. The Toras Horav Foundation was established by family members and former students to disseminate these and other works, with the aim of enhancing both our grasp of Rabbi Soloveitchik's philosophy and our understanding of the diverse topics he addressed" (viii).

While other writings of the Ray have appeared posthumously, they were based either upon notes of his talmudic discourses taken by students or upon tapes of his public lectures. This is the first volume of posthumous essays of the Ray based on his own manuscripts, and its importance is evident. We are grateful to all those involved in the appearance of this volume: Rabbi Aharon and Tovah Lichtenstein, who guided its editing process and reviewed the final manuscript; Rabbi Reuven Ziegler, Director of the MeOtzar HoRav Archives, and his devoted staff; and, above all, the editors themselves for such an auspicious beginning to what promises to be a truly monumental project.

This volume, as its subtitle indicates, focuses on family relationships and contains essays on marriage, sexual life, parenthood, and honor and fear of parents. Another essay of the Ray, "A Halakhic Approach to Suffering," also edited by Shatz and Wolowelsky and to form part of a future volume in this series devoted to the theme of evil and suffering, has already appeared in Volume 8 of the Torah U-Madda Journal (1998-1999). I hope that in a future volume or separate article Ziegler and the editors will provide us with an inventory or, at least, an overview of the manuscripts in the MeOtzar HoRav Archives, so that students of the Ray's thought might obtain at least some preliminary idea of their scope and content.

What contribution does this volume make to our understanding of the Rav's thought? The editors note that "Many of Rabbi Soloveitchik's characteristic themes and methods resonate in these essays" (xvii), and offer some apt illustrations (xvii-xvuii). If I might supplement the editors' list by offering a few random examples of my own: the essay, "Adam and Eve" develops many of the themes found in The Lonely Man of Faith (1) and "Confrontation"; (2) the theme of existential tension and complementarity found in the essays, "Adam and Eve" and "Marriage" is also found, albeit stated more briefly, in the essay, "The Community"; (3) the concept of the two complementary missions of the mother and father within the covenantal community developed in the essay, "Parenthood: Natural and Redeemed" is already found in the form of the two massorahs, traditions, the maternal and paternal, as presented in the essay "A Tribute to the Rebbetzin of Talne"; (4) and, finally, the distinction drawn at the beginningofthe essay, "A Ha lakhic Approach to Suffering" between the approaches taken to the problem of suffering by the thematic Halakhah and by the topical Halakhah bears a striking resemblance to the distinction drawn in "Kol Dodi Dofek" (5) between the metaphysical approach to the problem of suffering taken by the man of fate and the halakhic approach taken by the man of destiny, while the emphasis at the end of the essay on the redemptive significance of recoil, sacrifice, and taking defeat at one's own hands bears a striking resemblance to the theme of catharsis in the essay of that name. (6) Indeed, there are entire phrases, sentences, and paragraphs common to "A Halakhic Approach to Suffering" and "Catharsis." (7)

To take the editors' point one step further: Interestingly enough, many striking phrases of the Ray to be found in available publications reappear in these essays adapted to entirely different contexts! To take two examples from the essay, "Kibbud u-Mora: Honor and Fear of Parents," that I noted in the course of my reading: The Ray there writes, "One should... pity the parents who in their mad rush for success and riches lose their child, for all the riches that were assembled turn into dreadful poverty, and a bright day full of fragrance, song and color turns into a dreary and cold autumnal night" (148). Compare that to the following statement from The Lonely Man of Faith: "When the mysterious men of [the Great] Assembly witnessed the bright summer day of the prophetic community full of color and sound turning into a bleak autumnal night of dreadful silence unillumined by the vision of God...they refused to acquiesce to this cruel historical reality" (37). Further on in "Kibbud u-Mora" the Ray argues that "T he commandment of mora [fear] ... whisks us far from the array of modes of action, thought, and feeling of the material human universe, into the transcendent pure realm of a higher consciousness" (154). Again, compare that to the following statement from The Lonely Man of Faith: "The mathematical physicist ... whisks us away from the array of tangible things ... into a formal relational world of thought constructs" (15). (8)