In The Last Rabbi, William Kolbrener, a scholar of Milton, uses literary criticism and psychoanalysis to understand the philosophical works of the great 20th-century luminary. (Interview by Alan Brill).
Soloveitchik writes in [his theological treatise] Halakhic Man of what he considers to be the primary Jewish imperative, for man to “create himself.” Seen from this perspective, Soloveitchik’s philosophical writings serve as a kind of spiritual memoir, the means by which he creates himself through writing. Halakhic Man, for example, is about his father, his uncle [both distinguished rabbis], but also about himself, as he at once declares allegiance to his ancestors but also asserts independence from some of the traditions they represent. Repentance or t’shuvah is critical for Soloveitchik—throughout his works—as a form of story-telling about the self, one which allows for constant self-critique and continued self-construction.
Recognition of failure plays an important role in Soloveitchik’s emotional journey, and in the stories he tells about himself. Where, in childhood memories, failure is embarrassing or even shameful, later in his life both failure and suffering are transformed, retroactively becoming marks of distinction, indeed of existential chosenness. . . .
Indeed, I call him the “last rabbi” because of [his] self-perceived (and self-represented) failure as a teacher, his ostensible inability to communicate [what he calls the] “Torah of the heart” [alongside the more cerebral teachings]. While engaging his students intellectually, he was not able, he confesses, to solicit “growth on the experiential plane,” or to bestow his “personal warmth on them.” That is, Soloveitchik may have emphasized creativity and self-creation to such an extent, may have become so much the individual, that he transformed himself into the last rabbi.
Read more on Book of Doctrines and Opinions: https://kavvanah.wordpress.com/2017/02/21/interview-with-william-kolbrener-the-last-rabbi-joseph-soloveitchik/