Home Home / Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik on Torah U…

Note

May 24, 1988

Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik on Torah Umadda (1988)

Toldot Torah Umadda
View The Text

This content is currently available in its original PDF format. As we expand the library, we plan to add a text version as well.

RELATED CONTENT

Outline

Lecture on Torah Umadda (2002)

פותחין לכבוד יאכסניא – ... המורים והתלמידים. TOD: מדע only/תורה only/TuM – Y.U. and pattern all D.S. ST: 12-14 yrs ago, 2 divers emerg fr Medittrnean near Acco, 2 sacks snails, open dye changes yellow → green → blue → blue → deep purple: תכלת! They=2 br-I-1 (dentst/physcst – Sterman/Greenspan – YU grads) – EX: TUM! TOR = ות"ת כנגד כולם...והגית בו יומם ולילה AND: מורשה קהילת יעקב NOT only priestly clss... So; B proud Y J-only rel. Source TuM: בראשית-שמו; also: (רב בקר) שמואל (ירחינאה)
Torah Umadda

Speech

Torah Umadda as a Way to Shelemut (1987)

I am grateful to Rabbi Aharon Soloveitchik for his recent lecture in this series on the halakhic parameters of TuM. Although there is still much more that can and should be said about TuM even from a purely halakhic perspective, and I hope to add to it in time, his masterful treatment leaves me free to discuss other aspects of this endlessly fascinating subject as the focus of this lecture. TuM has a long and honorable history, even though it has usually not been the majority expression for long periods. An important volume is now being written, commissioned by us, presenting this history from the days of the Tannaim and Amoraim through the period of the Rishonim and Acharonim. This book will provide for us documentation of the precedents of our שיטה from the very beginning through Rav Hirsch and Rav Kook. I know that these chapters, being prepared by distinguished scholars, will prove fascinating and mind—expanding both for faculty and students. Y.U. is the home of TuM in our times. TuM is an idea and ideal which defines our mission and gives meaning and purpose to our institutional existence. I say, with regret, that there is no other major center of Torah Umadda in our period of history. As a short exercise of imagination, try this: if the Rambam were alive today, where would he teach if not here at Y.U. Indeed, who else would invite him to teach without worrying either that he was the author of the משנה תורה or the מורה נבוכים?... Interestingly, the Sephardi experience, especially during the Italian Renaissance, included a very natural, relaxed, unapologetic acceptance of what we now call TuM, without even bothering much to explain and defend it as an ideology. The Ashkenazi experience was, for a variety of historical reasons, much more tense, anxious, and withdrawn. In today's lecture, we shall attempt to find an ideological grounding for our שיטה of TuM not so much in the writings of the Sephardic Rishonim, where we might expect to find it, but דוקא in the ve…
Chasidim & Mitnagdim Torah Umadda

Outline

Torah Umadda Speech (1992)

1. apolgy f treatg thme here/book. *TuM so self-evdt... Many/most yshvot except far Hasidic: nght collg; All – HS; halkhc diff'ce? *True, attackd mny reasns. But note, e.g.: *R. Hayym Brisker: totl rjctn M – evn lang/nwspprs... any ready forbd Eng tdy? *same tm: nt true w no precdnts! Evn in hal'c commy *Exs: הרמ"א התעניין גם בלמודי פילוסופיה, קבלה היסטוריה ואסטרונומיה. בספרו "תורת העולה" מצטט הוא בתמידות חכמים רבים במקצועות אלו, אע"פ שבנוגע לתורת חכמי האומות שאב את ידיעותיו מכלי שני. הוא מתיחס
Torah Umadda