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March 16, 1988

The Derasha - Making Torah Eternally Relevant (1988)

Soviet Jewry The Rabbinate
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Ideas for Chag Hasemicha (1989)

The address should consist of a kind of manifesto of Yeshiva University's philosophy of the rabbinate. It should include the primacy of Torah; Torah U'Madda; the ideal of service to the community; the combination of commitment and open mindedness, loyalty to Orthodoxy and Outreach to the non-Orthodox community, dedication to our own religious growth and the spiritual and well-being of others. Included in this, should be a statement on the combination of a sense of responsibility to Torah (and, hence, the careful consultation with Roshei Yeshivah and older colleagues on important questions) together with the assumption of one's own professional, spiritual, and halakhic responsibility. Speak about Rav Chaim Volozhener's teaching of intellectual independence, and how he learned this from the Gaon, and how he even used it in refusing to go along with the Gaon's fulminations against Hasadism. In this connection, two of my greatest recollections of Rabbi Soloveitchik are: when he scolded me in class (see my Introduction to the two volume Soloveitchik Festschrift) and when I asked him about the Manhattan eruv, he told me to go figure it out myself and do what I think is right.
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The Makings of a Ben Torah (1983)

To be a rabbi, one must first of all be a ben Torah. What or who is a ben Torah? The translation, “a scholar of the Torah,” does not do the term justice – it is far too restrictive. A better definition would be “a Torah person” – bearing in mind that one cannot truly be a “Torah person” without first being an accomplished Torah scholar. What, then, are the extra ingredients, beyond talmudic learning, that go to make up a Torah person, a Torah personality? Someone once said that education is what a person has left after he has forgotten all that he has learned. Applying this to a ben Torah, we might then ask what distinguishes a ben Torah from others after you have subtracted all that he has learned of Talmud Bavli and Yerushalmi, of Rashi and Tosafot, of Rishonim and Acharonim, of Rambam and Ramban, of Tur and Shulchan Aruch, of Shach and Taz, of R. Hayyim and R. Akiva Eger. Remove all that and ask: What makes (or should make) us different and special? What, in other words, are the attitudinal foundations that inform the mentality of a ben Torah? The most obvious and the primary answer is that a Torah person loves and esteems the Torah and Torah learning. So, if a ben Torah forgets all that he has learned, his first task is—to learn it all over again. “For [the words of Torah] are our life and the length of our days” (Siddur). Inscribed in the cornerstone of our yeshiva is the principle that R. Hayyim of Volozhin cemented 180 years ago in the foundation of his yeshiva, Yeshivat Etz Hayyim, the mother of all yeshivot since. This mishnaic dictum, v'talmud Torah k’negged kulam—the study of Torah outweighs all other commandments—is to be taken not quantitatively, but functionally. The study of Torah is not only greater than the sum of all the other commandments; it is their very source. Torah is the “tree of life“; all the other commandments are the branches of that tree. Accordingly, the study of Torah is the source of all Jewish life. That is why your overarching co…
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Outline

The Three Fundamentals of Contemporary Orthodox Judaism (1989)

It is accepted as a given today that the three fundamental institutions of Orthodox Judaism are Shabbat, Kashrut, and Taharat Ha-Mishpaha. These are the three items we generally set before ourselves as our goals in convincing people to return to Judaism, the criteria by which we measure a person's Orthodoxy, and even the three major items to which we introduce potential converts. What is the source for specifically this collection of three items? The answer is – I do not know. I do not believe there is a text which can support specifically these three as being of over-arching importance. After all, there are a host of mitzvot – from Talmud Torah to Yom Kippur, etc. – which can claim priority. Wherefrom, then, this three-fold emphasis?I suggest that the source is not a text, but that it corresponds to and is based upon a human-psychological reality.It is well-known that the three major instinctual drives in man are: sex, food, and power.Hence, sex is circumscribed and sublimated by Taharat Ha-Mishpaha; food is limited and orientated by Kashrut; and the lust for power is curbed and directed by the laws of Shabbat which force us to relinquish our supremacy and control over mute nature and over our fellow humans (thus, le'maan yanuah avdekha...)
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