JEFFREY SAKS RABBI JOSEPH B. SOLOVEITCHIK AND THE ISRAELI CHIEF RABBINATE Biographical Notes (1959-60) In 1959-60 (following the death of Rabbi Yitzhak Herzog), it was widely speculated that Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik would be a candidate for the position of Chief Rabbi of the State of Israel. This opened a unique period both of very personal as well as public events in Rabbi Soloveitchik’s life, which form a fascinating chapter in his biography. The story includes an encounter with cancer that would shape his thoughts on suffering and the human condition; in reaction to the events of this period, he composed two of his most important essays. Rabbi Soloveitchik did not, as we know, become Israel’s Chief Rabbi, but understanding the episode provides important biographical insights, helps us contextualize his quarter-century of activity following this period, enables us to speculate on what “might have been” for American and Israeli Jewry had he moved to Jerusalem in the 1960s, as well as understand some of the challenges that still face religious society and education in Israel and the Diaspora today. When the Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Israel, R. Yitzhak Herzog, died on 25 July 1959, it was widely speculated in Israel and throughout the Diaspora that Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik would be a candidate for the position. This opened a unique period both of very personal as well as public events in Rabbi Soloveitchik’s life, which form a fascinating chapter in his biography. The events are centered in Jerusalem, Boston, and New York. The story includes an encounter with cancer that would shape his thoughts on suffering and the human condition, and involve his only extended absence from his classroom at Yeshiva University during his * After this essay was completed, we were fortunate to note the publication of: Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Community, Covenant and Commitment: Selected Letters and Communications, edited by Nathaniel Helfgot (Jersey City, NJ: Ktav, 2005). Many of the archival sources cited herein have been translated to English and published in full in this important volume. The reader will find pp. 173-194 of particular relevance to the present study. JS B.D.D. 17, September 2006
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45
Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik and the Israeli Chief Rabbinate
JEFFREY SAKS
RABBI JOSEPH B. SOLOVEITCHIK AND THE
ISRAELI CHIEF RABBINATE
Biographical Notes (1959-60)
In 1959-60 (following the death of Rabbi Yitzhak Herzog), it was widely
speculated that Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik would be a candidate for the position
of Chief Rabbi of the State of Israel. This opened a unique period both of very
personal as well as public events in Rabbi Soloveitchik’s life, which form a
fascinating chapter in his biography. The story includes an encounter with cancer
that would shape his thoughts on suffering and the human condition; in reaction
to the events of this period, he composed two of his most important essays.
Rabbi Soloveitchik did not, as we know, become Israel’s Chief Rabbi, but
understanding the episode provides important biographical insights, helps us
contextualize his quarter-century of activity following this period, enables us to
speculate on what “might have been” for American and Israeli Jewry had he
moved to Jerusalem in the 1960s, as well as understand some of the challenges
that still face religious society and education in Israel and the Diaspora today.
When the Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Israel, R. Yitzhak Herzog, died on 25 July
1959, it was widely speculated in Israel and throughout the Diaspora that Rabbi
Joseph B. Soloveitchik would be a candidate for the position. This opened a unique
period both of very personal as well as public events in Rabbi Soloveitchik’s life,
which form a fascinating chapter in his biography. The events are centered in
Jerusalem, Boston, and New York. The story includes an encounter with cancer
that would shape his thoughts on suffering and the human condition, and involve
his only extended absence from his classroom at Yeshiva University during his
* After this essay was completed, we were fortunate to note the publication of: Rabbi Joseph
B. Soloveitchik, Community, Covenant and Commitment: Selected Letters and
Communications, edited by Nathaniel Helfgot (Jersey City, NJ: Ktav, 2005). Many of the
archival sources cited herein have been translated to English and published in full in this
important volume. The reader will find pp. 173-194 of particular relevance to the present
study. JS
B.D.D. 17, September 2006
46
Jeffrey Saks
forty-four years of active teaching. The composition of two of his most important
essays occurred during this time, and in reaction to the events of this period.
Machinations of Israeli political parties, the influence of leading rabbinic figures
in Israel, and a “cast of characters” including David Ben-Gurion and Elie Wiesel
are part of the tale. As we know, Rabbi Soloveitchik did not become Israel’s Chief
Rabbi, but understanding the episode provides important biographical insights,
helps us contextualize his quarter-century of activity following this period, enables
us to speculate on what “might have been” for American and Israeli Jewry had he
moved to Jerusalem in the 1960s, as well as understand some of the challenges that
still face religious society and education in Israel and the Diaspora today.1
While many names were bandied about as possible successors to R. Herzog,
the Rav (as Rabbi Soloveitchik was universally known), R. Shlomo Goren (then
Chief Rabbi of the IDF), and R. Isser Yehudah Unterman (Tel Aviv’s Chief Rabbi)
were the leading contenders.2 In the end, the position would remain vacant for
almost five years, as elections were delayed time and again over the absence of a
consensus-forming candidate, and (more significantly) bitter debates raged within
the rabbinate and the Israeli government as to the electoral process.3
By this time in his life, Rabbi Soloveitchik was identified as a leading figure in
Religious Zionism. From 1952 he had served as the honorary president of the
Mizrahi, and had associated himself with that movement since the early 1940s.4
1 While it is not necessary to accept all of Shlomo Pick’s critiques of current Rav scholarship,
it is hoped that this study answers his call for fleshing out chapters in Rabbi Soloveitchik’s
biography, and correlating them to the more important matter of his thought. See Shlomo
H. Pick, “The Rav: A Pressing Need for a Comprehensive Biography,” B.D.D. 10 (Winter
2000), pp. 37-57.
2 Among other names mentioned periodically in the Israeli press were R. Shlomo Zalman
Auerbach, R. Yosef Kahaneman (Rosh Yeshiva of Ponovitz), R. Pinchas M. Teitz (of
Elizabeth, NJ), and R. Shlomo Yosef Zevin (editor of the Encyclopedia Talmudit). The
Israeli dailies all dedicated coverage to the issue following R. Herzog’s death. However,
Pinhas Peli, who would later go on to prepare various volumes of the Rav’s lectures and
shiurim for publication, dedicated almost weekly articles to it in the magazine he edited in
those years, Panim el Panim. Peli, foregoing journalistic objectivity, clearly favored the
Rav.
3 The position of the Rishon leTzion, the Sephardic Chief Rabbi, also remained in limbo
throughout much of this period, as the first term of R. Yitzhak Nissim expired in 1961, and
his re-election was similarly delayed until 1964 (when elections finally took place), although
the Knesset had passed a measure by which, in the event of a delay, the incumbent would
retain authority pro tem until elections took place.
4 For the chronology (and documentation) of the Rav’s association with Mizrahi, see Pick,
“A Pressing Need,” p. 42, and his “The Rav: Biography and Bibliography,” B.D.D. 6 (Winter
1998), p. 41 n. 17.
47
Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik and the Israeli Chief Rabbinate
On Yom HaAtzmaut 1956, just three years prior to talk of his candidacy, the Rav
had delivered his stirring speech “Kol Dodi Dofek,” which remains one of the most
influential works to be penned by a religious Zionist thinker.5 His Zionist credentials
(sine qua non for his potential candidacy) were well established – yet, as is known,
and as he mentioned publicly on various occasions, this was not in line with his
“family tradition”:
I was not born into a Zionist household. My parents’ ancestors, my father’s
house, my teachers and colleagues were far from the Mizrachi religious
Zionists. They too held “why meddle in the secrets of the Merciful one?”....
If I now identify with the Mizrachi, against my family tradition, it is only
because, as previously clarified, I feel that Divine Providence ruled like
“Joseph” and against his brothers [i.e. anti-Zionists]; that He employs secular
Jews as instruments to bring to fruition His great plans regarding the land of
Israel. I also believe that there would be no place for Torah in Israel today
were it not for the Mizrachi. I built an altar upon which I sacrificed sleepless
nights, doubts and reservations. Regardless, the years of the Hitlerian
holocaust, the establishment of the State of Israel, and the accomplishments
of the Mizrachi in the land of Israel, convinced me of the correctness of our
movement’s path.6
That family tradition of anti-Zionism, rejected by the Rav, was perhaps best
represented by his paternal uncle, R. Yitzhak Zev (Velvel) Soloveitchik, the Brisker
Rav of Jerusalem. It may possibly have been out of a desire to maintain good
relations with that branch of the family that the Rav did not visit Israel in all the
years after his failed bid for the rabbinate of Tel Aviv in Summer 1935 (the only
time in his life that he did visit Eretz Yisrael7). While purely speculative, we may
5 Originally published in Hebrew in Torah u-Melukhah, ed. Shimon Federbush (Jerusalem:
Mossad HaRav Kook, 1961), reprinted in Ish HaEmunah (Jerusalem: Mossad HaRav Kook,
1971), pp. 65-106, BeSod HaYahid ve-HaYahad (Jerusalem: Orot, 1976), and in Divrei
Hagut ve-Ha’arakhah (Jerusalem: WZO, 1982), pp. 9-55; recently appeared in translation
as Fate and Destiny: From Holocaust to the State of Israel (Hoboken, NJ: Ktav, 2000).
Good analyses of the Rav’s Zionism can be found in Dov Schwartz, Emunah al Parshat
Derakhim (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1996), and in Walter S. Wurzburger, “HaYesodot
HaFilosofi’im be-Mishnato HaTzionit HaDatit shel HaRav Soloveitchik” in Emunah
BeZemanim Mishtanim, ed. A. Sagi (Jerusalem: Elinor, 1996), pp. 111-122.
6 The Rav Speaks: Five Addresses (Jerusalem: Tal Orot, 1983 [reprinted: New York, 2002]),
pp. 35, 36. These words were probably delivered sometime in the early 1960s.
7 For more on Rabbi Soloveitchik’s visit to Palestine and his defeat in the Tel Aviv election,
see Shaul Farber, Community, Schooling, and Leadership: Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik’s
48
Jeffrey Saks
imagine that had he visited the Holy Land, he might have felt compelled to make a
courtesy call at the Chief Rabbinate, thus alienating his uncle – an ardent opponent
of that institution. However, Reb Velvel died on the evening of Yom Kippur, 11
October 1959, and it is possible that this helped alleviate the Rav’s reluctance to
consider a bid for the Chief Rabbinate.8
In fact, the Rav addressed the issue of his uncle’s anti-Zionism in the eulogy
that he delivered on 12 December 1959 (later published as “Mah Dodekh mi-Dod”).9
They said of him [Reb Velvel] that he was opposed to the State of Israel.
This is not correct. Opposition to a State emanates from adopting a position
regarding a political body, which is itself a political act. My uncle was
completely removed from all socio-political thought or response. What may
be said of him is that the State found no place within his halakhic thought
Maimonides School and the Development of Boston’s Orthodox Community (Ph.D. Diss.,
Hebrew University, March 2000), pp. 81-85. In 1946, the position was apparently offered
to him again (following the death of R. Moshe Avigdor Amiel), and the Rav replied that he
would accept it on the condition that he be appointed without an election, a demand the
council refused. If this is true, it presages the Rav’s distaste for politics, and suggests the
degree to which his 1935 defeat had scarred him. This episode was first brought to light by
Shlomo Pick, “The Rav: A Pressing Need,” p. 52, esp. at note 30. It is also obvious that the
1941 Boston “kashrut controversy” added to his distaste for politics; for background see
Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff, The Rav: The World of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik (Hoboken,
NJ: Ktav, 1999), Vol. 1, pp. 30-32, and Farber, pp. 132-142.
8 This speculation was put forth by Pinhas Peli, Panim el Panim (7 August 1959), p. 5.
9 The eulogy was delivered to an overflow audience in Yeshiva University’s Lamport
Auditorium. It was not delivered during the sheloshim, as I had erroneously written in my
“Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik on the Brisker Method,” Tradition 33:2 (Winter 1999), n. 1.
Delivered in Yiddish, it was published in Hebrew in HaDoar 42:39 (27 September 1963),
pp. 752-759, and later reprinted (with a few additional footnotes) in BeSod HaYahid ve-
haYahad, pp. 189-254, as well as in Divrei Hagut ve-Ha’arakhah, pp. 57-97. What is
particularly interesting in the eulogy, and what lends it great importance as a written essay,
is the Rav’s treatment and analysis of the characteristics of the Brisker method, and more
specifically the exemplar of the method – the Halakhic Man. In this way, the eulogy serves
as a parallel text to the Rav’s monumental essay, Ish HaHalakhah. The highly personal
nature of the eulogy, however, lends insight into the Rav’s conception of this typological
personality–in the eulogy the Rav is explicitly describing his uncle, father, and grandfather
as paradigmatic halakhic men. Furthermore, “Mah Dodekh miDod” was published almost
two decades after the first appearance of Ish HaHalakhah (in 1944) – and may be the
product of a more mature perspective. In any event, the material in the eulogy is an important
supplement to our understanding of what is arguably the Rav’s most significant work. (There
are, of course, also significant differences between the Ish HaHalakhah of 1944 and the
material presented in this hesped, which I hope to be able to address elsewhere.)
49
Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik and the Israeli Chief Rabbinate
system nor on his halakhic value scale. He was unable to “translate” the
idea of a sovereign, secular State to halakhic properties and values.10
It is not that Reb Velvel was an anti-Zionist, per se, but that, as a Halakhic Man and
“Man of Pure Halakhic Truth,” the secular State of Israel did not register on his
radar screen. Upon reaching the disappointing conclusion that there was no way to
co-opt the State to the a priori ideals of the Halakhah, Reb Velvel was forced to
retreat to the realm of the ideal Halakhah and ignore (not oppose) the State. At this
point in his presentation, we must pay close attention to the Rav’s words as he
wrote them:
This disappointment led to my uncle separating himself from the most
important event in modern Jewish history [i.e. the establishment of the
State].11
This interpretation of Reb Velvel’s attitude (what some might see as an attempt at
apologetics) is significant because the Rav is not merely explaining the family
tradition of anti-Zionism, but explaining the mechanics of the Brisker worldview
(i.e. the weltanschauung of the Ish Halakhah), which, while not inherently opposed
to the idea of a State,12 leaves no room for the particular State established in 1948.
When he admits, therefore, that after many sleepless nights he has broken with that
tradition – it means that he himself may not completely share the worldview that
he has idealized in Halakhic Man (and again in “Mah Dodekh miDod”).
Furthermore, the Rav was compelled to explain – in light of the family tradition
– how he was capable of assigning significance to a secular state. The Rav
vehemently insisted that there is nothing to which the halakhic system is neutral.
In a moving passage describing the scope and range of halakhic thought, he insists
that the strength of Halakhah to adapt the idea of the State to it, and not vice versa,
is assured by the tradition, as stated by Rambam in Hilkhot Teshuvah (7:5) that
10 “Mah Dodekh miDod,” Divrei Hagut, p. 89. Compare this section to the Rav’s later comments
at a Mizrahi convention, discussing his grandfather’s brand of Zionism, in Five Addresses,
pp. 34-36.
11 Divrei Hagut, p. 90 (emphasis added).
12 Apologetics or not, the Jerusalem branch of the Brisk dynasty – the descendents and followers
of Reb Velvel – clearly do embody full-throated anti-Zionism. See Aviezer Ravitzky,
Messianism, Zionism, and Jewish Religious Radicalism (Chicago: University of Chicago,
1996), esp. chap. 4. See pp. 155-156, for an amusing account of Reb Velvel’s “complete
value neutrality toward the meaning of the Jewish return into political history” (but see
also the quote on p. 160).
50
Jeffrey Saks
“‘ultimately Israel will repent’; Providence will not abandon the soul of the nation.”13
The Rav presented an alternate view of the State, but one from within the Halakhah,
enabling him to appreciate and relate to “the most important event in modern Jewish
history.” His uncle, on the other hand, was unable to view the State in this way, or
unwilling to do so, because “he feared that the perpetual conflict with the secular
State would necessitate compromise and accommodation of the ideal [halakhic]
order to that of reality.”
In any event, there can be little doubt that the Rav’s remarks contained some
element of critique of the tradition he claims to have broken with. No one would
suggest that the Rav used the platform of his uncle’s eulogy to make a statement of
his Zionist bona fides; it was, however, a presentation that allowed insight into the
mindset of someone who was, at that moment, entertaining a candidacy for the
Israeli Chief Rabbinate.
˘
Since the Rav’s name was being publicly mentioned as a candidate, and the Israeli
press was giving coverage to the elections, a young reporter for Yediot Aharonot
named Eliezer Wiesel (later to become known as Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel) was
dispatched to interview him and write a profile, which appeared in the Friday
magazine supplement on 13 November 1959.14 Wiesel met with the Rav at his
apartment in the Yeshiva University dormitories. Generally flattering, although by
necessity superficial, the profile reveals that following the Rav’s annual Teshuvah
Derashah that year (delivered during Aseret Yemei Teshuvah – the first week in
October), the Israeli Consul General in New York had cabled Jerusalem: “Here is
the best candidate to replace Rabbi Herzog.”
Wiesel asked Rabbi Soloveitchik if he would accept the position; the Rav
responded that it had not yet been offered to him!
[However,] one doesn’t refuse an offer which comes from Eretz Yisrael....
When I receive [an offer] – if it is sent at all – I will consider it with all
seriousness: I will ask myself if I am fit for this exalted position.
Wiesel then asked the Rav about the rumors that Reb Velvel, who had passed away
only a month earlier, had instructed Rabbi Soloveitchik in his last will not to accept
the position. The Rav responded: “It’s hard to believe such rumors, since we have
13 Divrei Hagut, p. 91. On other occasions the Rav made it clear that the halakhic prism that
allowed him to encompass a secular state within his worldview was the simpler vehicle of