From the WSJ Opinion Archives
HOUSES OF WORSHIP
No, Not the Same
Different faiths may talk. Will they ever understand?
"Borscht is reddish, Manischewitz is bluish. Merry Christmas from somebody Jewish." It's the season for interfaith dialogue, and Hallmark, as usual, is leading the way. But as we begin the annual rush to insist that Hanukkah and Christmas are really, you know, sort of the same because they both celebrate peace on earth--they don't . . . Hanukkah commemorates a battle--it might be useful to remember that theological discussions among serious people of different faiths are full of difficulties, as they should be, and confined within certain limits.
As much as anyone in modern Jewish life, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik understood this. Though Soloveitchik, who died in 1993, felt that Jews and Christians could discuss the dignity of man or the difficulty of finding sanctity in a secular world, he was wary of hoping for more. As one of his disciples says: "Attempts at vacuous commonality at the expense of rich, substantive differences would have been anathema to his integrity."
As it happens, Rabbi Soloveitchik--or "the Rav," as he came to be known--is the subject of an exhibit now traveling the country, celebrating the centenary of his birth. Sponsored by an institute named for him, it depicts his life and work in photos and manuscripts.
And who, exactly, was Soloveitchik? He was born in Pruzhan, Poland, the descendant of an illustrious line of rabbis. He proved to be a prodigy of Talmudic study, and great things were predicted for him. No one, though, could have imagined that he would become a guiding light for religious Jews in America, helping them to understand their relation to the dominant, non-Jewish culture.
Soloveitchik was uncompromising in his practice of traditional Judaism, but philosophically he ranged widely. His most famous work, "The Lonely Man of Faith" (1965), is littered with footnotes to philosophers from Descartes to Kierkegaard. (This is hardly surprising, given his rigorous education at the University of Berlin.) The book takes its theme--the dual nature of man--from contradictory details in the Genesis account of man's creation. Man appears there, Soloveitchik argued, as both a "majestic" creature who dominates the natural world and as a lonely servant searching for an intimate relation with God.
After coming to America in 1932, Soloveitchik would insist on the importance of secular studies as a route to greater religious understanding. Such a belief is evident at the Maimonides School in Brookline, Mass., founded by the Rav and his wife in 1937 and still thriving. (Indeed, every year a high percentage of the school's graduates go on to Ivy League colleges.)
But Soloveitchik did not believe in synthesizing religious and secular studies. Mark Gottlieb, Maimonides' current principal, argues that the Rav wanted students to maintain "the integrity of each discipline and not to assume that there is a theological solution at the end of the road." Still, Soloveitchik argued that religious Jews must engage the surrounding culture. On the occasion of Vatican II, he published an article that urged finding solidarity with Christians on social and ethical matters--while recognizing that, on theology, one religious community might never truly understand another.
Although Soloveitchik believed that it was possible to lead a fully Jewish life in America, he knew that his adopted country presented challenges. A rare aspect of the Maimonides school is that women and men receive an equal Torah education. Rabbi Jacob J. Schacter, dean of the Soloveitchik Institute in Brookline, explains: "In Europe, young boys were sent to school for religious study, while the girls were just supposed to imbibe whatever knowledge they needed on their own." In America, Soloveitchik saw, one couldn't simply imbibe Judaism. "One needed to have the full advantage of an intensive Jewish education," Rabbi Schacter says.
The Rav eventually became a leader of the Religious Zionists of America, which emphasized the importance of the state of Israel for sheltering Jews from persecution and for enabling them to live a more Jewish life. Still, he believed, according to Shalom Carmy, the editor of some of Soloveitchik's works, that "when religion functions with the state, it can lead to religion's ceremonialization and vulgarization."
Soloveitchik seems to have felt at home in America, and perhaps for good reason. Even if "interfaith dialogue" has its limits, isolation and misunderstanding are not the only alternatives. At the height of his influence in the Jewish world, the Rav delivered "The Lonely Man of Faith" as a lecture at St. Joseph's Seminary in Boston.
Ms. Schaefer's book on America's religious colleges will be published next fall.
