In the latest edition of the Brooklyn Jewish journal
Hakirah, there is a fascinating article on Rav Joseph Ber Soloveitchik (1903 -1993) by David. P. Goldman, entitled “The Rav’s Uncompleted Grand Design.” Goldman himself is a Renaissance man — an economist, a musicologist, an expert on China, a scholar. But this blog is about JB, as Rav Soloveitchik was affectionately known. There were two great men who had a profound impact on American Jewry during the past century, the Lubavitcher Rebbe and Rav Soloveitchik. They represented the different major streams of Orthodoxy in our times.
Rav Soloveitchik was born on February 27, 1903, in Eastern Europe. He came from one of its greatest rabbinical dynasties, known as Brisk. After an intensive Talmudic education, he went on to graduate from Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin with a Ph.D. in epistemology and metaphysics. In 1932, he emigrated to the US. He settled in Boston and took up a rabbinical position. In 1941, he began to teach the main Talmud class at Yeshiva University. He ordained some 2,000 rabbis in his career, and his lectures attracted thousands of devotees. He was held in enormous respect by everyone. He died in 1993.