My great teacher Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik is known in part for his essay, "The Lonely Man of Faith." The article was published in 1965 in the Orthodox journal Tradition and then as a book with an introduction by Professor David Shatz. (A film about the Rav with the same title was produced by Ethan Isenberg.)
Koren-Maggid publishers have reissued the essay with a new introduction by Rabbi Reuven Ziegler, a clear and succinct summary of the article.
We greatly admire our esteemed teacher and have always believed that he meant well by publishing in this essay his emotional musings on the first chapters of Genesis and on the existential angst of the Orthodox Jew.
The dichotomy that the Rav imagined and spoke about between spiritual and material, religious and scientific, covenantal and majestic, for years did not speak to us, did not help us achieve religious understanding or satisfaction.
Finally we set forth our understanding of the "Gregarious Man of Faith" in our new book, which closely examines the core spiritual texts of Judaism and identifies six friends that accompany us daily in our own ideal unified and whole spiritual community.
We recommend you read both books, the Rav's lonely treatise, and our gregarious one.
1 comment:
Dear Professor,
Thank you for sharing this thought about LMOF. What you wrote corresponds to my own reaction to many of RS's writings. Looking forward to reading "God's Favorite Prayers."
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