Joseph B. Soloveitchik on Tradition, Authority, and Historical Change

Focusing on a speech given by the 20th-century sage in 1975, Jeffrey Woolf analyzes Soloveitchik’s understanding of the halakhic authority of tradition, and his response to those who would say that Jewish law must change to keep up with a changing world:

The Torah, [according to Soloveitchik], has its own methodological and axiological integrity. It stands on its own two feet, and does not need to be validated by any source outside of itself. It is by no means . . . static, but it is internally stable and consistent.

It was precisely this deeply held axiom that prompted Soloveitchik’s passionate reaction to [those] who maintained that the rulings [of the talmudic sages] were conditioned upon a specific historical reality [and thus lose their validity if that reality changes. For them], halakhah becomes eminently malleable and can be freely adapted according to the will (or whim) of the interpreter. Soloveitchik forthrightly condemned the subjugation of Judaism to external systems of values, coercing it to conform thereto in violation of its textual and interpretive tradition. . . ..

At the same time, Soloveitchik definitely did not advocate a blind, . . . fundamentalist stance toward the outside world and its culture. . . . [He believed] that one should courageously enlist the full panoply of Western culture for the explication and enhancement of Judaism. Judaism, in Soloveitchik’s model, creatively engages and interacts with other systems of thought and value. It is enriched and our appreciation of it is deepened by that interaction. It does not, however, subordinate itself to them, or make its validity contingent on them. . . .

This is not to suggest . . . that changes in social and historical circumstances do not affect halakhah. Obviously, they do. However, the interaction between them (and the pace of that interaction) is predicated upon the tools that tradition itself provides.

Read more at Torah Musings

More about: Halakhah, Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Judaism, Religion & Holidays, Tradition

 

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF