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
A Window Into the Past, Looking Towards the Future: A Tribute to Rabbi William Millen, zt”l By Shmuel Lesher | January 21, 2021
Usually we only get to know gedolim once they have clearly established themselves as being in a category of their own. I knew of the greatness of Rav Aaron Lichtenstein, zt”l. But what was he like when he was a teenager? What were his years studying at Harvard like? Through a brief encounter with Rabbi William Millen, zt”l, I caught a glimpse of his childhood friend, the young Aaron Lichtenstein. As Rabbi Millen shared his story with me, he also gave me a window into the incredible evolution of Orthodoxy in America.