Six years ago I wrote the post below. It's now 24 years since the Rav passed away.
I have many memories of him and I revere his intellectual and spiritual impact on me, on my family and on our community.
My critique from 2011 of the story of one of my colleagues follows here:
It's eighteen years on Friday since the passing of my revered teacher, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, the Rav.
One of his students, Rabbi Steven Riskin, has published a recollection of the Rav drawn from a book that he has written, called,
Listening to God: 
Inspirational Stories for My Grandchildren (Koren Publishers). It was originally published in The Jewish Press and is copied here from the
YU News web site.
This article concludes with a story that we think should be forgotten, not remembered. It is not inspirational to us, it makes us cringe. It illustrates the interpersonal shortcomings of the rabbi, his raw edges and abrupt classroom mannerisms. It depicts a person who cannot apologize for an emotional outburst -- an explosion -- by simply saying that he is sorry. In our humble opinion, there is nothing good to be learned from the story and we are sorry to read it and to see that it has been published.
Rabbi Riskin recounts as follows at the end of his article:
I remember exactly what we were studying when the incident occurred: Masechet Pesachim, the topic of tesha chanuyot. It is a complex portion of the Talmud, and it’s very difficult to understand exactly what the Gemara is trying to get at. It deals with the laws of presumption. Rav Soloveitchik had presented a whole construct as to how he thought the Gemara should be interpreted, and then he reversed himself completely and gave a wholly different understanding. I was very excited about the second way in which he was explaining the repartee within the Talmud; this new interpretation was truly novel and eye-opening.
