R. Ahron Soloveichik: “In Defense of My Brother”
R. Ahron Soloveichik: “In Defense of My Brother”
Marc B. Shapiro
In his recent post here Professor Shnayer Leiman showed how almost magically, things from the past, thought to be lost, can be brought back to life as it were. I recently had the same experience. In my Torah in Motion class a couple of weeks ago (see here) I was discussing the Jewish Observer “eulogy” for R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik. I mentioned R. Moshe Tendler’s strong response in the Algemeiner Journal (see here), and I further noted that R. Ahron Soloveichik also wrote a very long article in the Algemeiner in which he defends the Rav against the attack of a certain rabbi. (R. Ahron also deals with the Jewish Observer article).
For many years I have been trying to get a copy of R. Ahron’s article as unfortunately I never saved it years ago. I couldn’t find the particular issue at any of the libraries I checked. Even the family of R. Ahron was not able to provide a copy. Yet as Leiman mentions in his last post, “Miracles sometimes do occur.” In my class, I mentioned how I was not able to find the article, and I hoped that it could still be discovered somewhere. One of the listeners contacted me to let me know that in his grandfather’s papers he found it! ברוך שמסר עולמו לשומרים (The listener’s grandfather was the great R. Shlomo Schneider, author of the four-volume collection of responsa Divrei Shlomo.)
The Seforim Blog is happy to be able to post R. Ahron’s article, thus preserving it for posterity. See here.
Exciting Update: All of the relevant articles from the Algemeiner Journal (and other publications) relating to the passing of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik will appear in a forthcoming essay at the Seforim blog that I will co-author with Mr. Menachem Butler of Cambridge, MA, who has done extensive research into this episode over many years and has graciously made available his research for the Seforim blog readers.
85 thoughts on “R. Ahron Soloveichik: “In Defense of My Brother””
So the safest guess for who the rosh yeshiva and member of the moetzes who had all the nice things to say about Bialik is R. Hutner, right? Based on
a) he would
b)he would have been in Israel and in Rav Kook’s orbit when all the stories mentioned happened
c) R. Ahron had a relationship with Rav Hutner dating back to when he taught the top shiur in Chaim Berlin
No wait, even farther than that. He taught R. Ahron when he was a kid in Russia.
just curious, is what Reb Ahron wrote about Bialik’s “teshuvah” when he was in EY well known? Are there any other sources to this?
A correction to the post. After looking more carefully, I see Harvard has a microfilm of the paper for 1993. I couldn’t find it originally because it is listed under the Yiddish title.
Algemeyner zshurnal
According to the catalog the microfilm includes 1993 (minus the April 9 issue — the day of the Rav’s passing). The newspaper covered the controversy about the boycott of the Rav’s funeral, the Jewish Observer’s article, and the various reactions. When the world returns to normal I will try to get all this material and post it.
Of course, the issue of the day of his passing wouldn’t have mentioned his passing. That would have been the next day.
Of course, that was a Friday of Chol HaMoed, so there may have been no issue.
I’m sorry I didn’t know you were looking for this! I still have a copy as well, uncut and in good shape. (I have a good copy of the Tendler piece as well, which you can also find at the Onthemainline blog.) If you want it I can photograph it or try to scan it.
Rabbi Genack, in responding to a letter in the Jewish Press, also addressed the Jewish Observer piece. He said that Rav Pam had been appalled by it. I have a copy of that very long piece as well.
Algemeniner is was a weekly.
If it’s even published chol haMoed week
Gershon Jacobson, a distant relative of my wife, wrote a beautiful article about the funeral and made a point of listing those of the Rav’s talmidim who attended (for which I will always be grateful to him).
Who is this “Rabbi X” who wrote the letter he was responding to?
One thing that, I think, detracts from the force of RAS’ letter is that – unless I’m remembering incorrectly – RAS was himself considered a revisionist by many in YU circles, for advocating a more right-wing version of TuM in the name of his brother. So it’s possible that RAS was defending one interpretation of RYBS while “Rabbi X” was attacking a different version, and Rabbi X’s version may have been closer to reality.
And NYPL has the same microfilm. YIVO has hard copies but not clear from catalog if they have everything in 1993.
So this shows the importance of having the correct title! In any event, I think people are happy to have the article posted, even if it is not as rare as I originally thought.
JNUL only has microfilm from 2005 and on.
Anyone have a copy of Rabbi X’s letter? Who was Rabbi X?
Thank you Dr. Shapiro for posting this.
BH
Thank you very much.
I have been told that the Algemainer Journal has digitized their archives, and they exist somewhere on some hard drive and cloud. I, therefore, assume that it is accessible somewhere.
I have been told (but I have not checked into this) that in addition to the aforementioned libraries, the national library of Israel holds either hard copies or microfilms for much of the issues.
I am curious as to the נחלת דוד question posed to rco…( end of the article), isn’t the connection of אי שתקית and מה מכר clearly articulated in the נתיבות קיח סק״א / קיט סקט / and קמט סק״ד
Rchaim ozer was well aware of these mare mikomos
R’ Tendler mentions that both R’ Hutner and the Lubavitcher went on to the Sorbonne. Now, this was a common misconception about the latter even when he was alive, even though it’s not true (and he didn’t exactly attend the University of Berlin either), but I’ve never even seen it in relation to R’ Hutner. Is it true?
I suppose R’ Tendler figured that mentioning Nechama Leibowitz and Abraham Joshua Heschel wouldn’t really have helped things with the JO’s audience.
I posted it either partially or entirely in my book Rav and Rebbe. I urge yr readers to read the bk including the 550 fn bc youll much related info.
Rabbi Chaim Dalfin
Info@rabbidalfin.com
My Rebbe was much more eloquent than this article gives him credit for. It may have been that it was a translation from Yiddish and it could be that the Rosh Yeshiva was not feeling well.
R. Ahron wrote this letter in English. If he was not eloquent, it is because he was writing from a place of deep hurt and anger.
In the article, the Rav’s last name is spelled without a “t” and Rav Ahron’s with a “t” (even in the signature) the opposite of their usual spellings. Does anyone know why this is?
Just a mistake by the publisher. Look at R. Ahron’s signature. Also, note how the publisher made his first name Aharon, not Ahron.
The whole article was terribly proof read. It has dozens of mistakes.
Sobering to realize how much ill will has resulted from that one ill-advised paragraph in the Jewish Observer. It actually was an editorial mistake made by one person, without the knowledge of the administration of the Agudah and everyone involved regretted it. The person responsible had been advised by Gedolim not to write the message in the manner he did, but under a deadline and time- constraint it went out anyway, without careful consideration.
Do you have any concrete evidence to support your contention that:
a) It was an “editorial mistake”? Seems from even a cursory reading of the blurb that there were far too many sins of commission and omission to render this a mistake (if by mistake you mean an accident).
b) The blurb was published without the knowledge of the administration of the Agudah?
c) That “everyone involved” regretted it? In the span of one sentence you shift from it being the mistake of one person to an event regretted by everyone involved. Did the Jewish Observer publish any retraction?
d) That the “person responsible” (so now you have shifted back to attributing the hit piece to one person) was advised by the (unnamed) “Gedolim” not to write it in the manner that he did? And here I thought that the “mistake” was made without the knowledge of Agudah’s administration.
e) That a “time constraint” is what led to the publication of a bizayon of a Gadol B’Torah? So when other Gedolei Torah have died there weren’t any time constraints?
Sounds to me like you’re engaging in a futile whitewash, one teeming with internal contradictions and baseless speculation. Maybe you should go back to the drawing board.
The JO editor was given complete free reign by Agudah management. Which is why they never found a successor when he retired.
They could trust him to toe the line.
Although it would be interesting to find out if he consulted anyone. Moetzet or otherwise. Don’t wait on it.
They could trust him to toe the line because the line is set not by the gedolim but by the askanim themselves. You don’t think Shafran consults with the “gedolim” every time he issues another statement, do you? Do you honestly think that Wolpin sent every issue to the Moetzes for approval?
Not that I’m letting the “gedolim” off the hook. Either they approve, or they don’t exercise the agency to openly express disapproval, or they lack such agency or knowledge. Whatever it is, it doesn’t reflect well on them.
Oh, give me a break. The original excuse was that it wasn’t so bad, until the obvious point was made that the entire piece is full of deliberate negative points. And now, with almost three decades to think of a new excuse, you’ve present a host of very weak ones, each of which contradicts the other. I mean just look at it: “One person” can’t be “everyone involved.” “Without knowledge” can’t then be “advised by Gedolim.” “Advised by Gedolim” can’t then be “deadline and time constraint.” Etc. etc. Have you no shame?
The JO was capable of writing obituaries of a dozen pages for people you never heard of before. If someone dies as a deadline loomed, magazines tend to include a small box saying, “As we went to press, we were saddened to hear of the passing of…a full appreciation will appear in a future issue.”
R’ Soloveitchik got an insulting half-page, nothing else, no “regret.” I was at an event where Wolpin was openly confronted about this. He doubletalked his way around it. No “regret.”
Oh, and never a word of regret from any of the “Gedolim.” The most I’ve seen is that R’ Pam was appalled. At the Rav’s memorial service a few weeks later at YU, the Feinstein brothers (who were cousins of the Soloveitchiks) came, as did R’ Pam, who was a gem of a human being. They were all seated in positions of honor up front. There was not a single other representative of the charedi “gedolim.”
I am personally aware of the facts regarding this incident, and stand by my report, precisely as recorded above. There are teirutzim to all your kushyes. I am not a gemara, so please don’t presume any supposed implications.
By the way, Mr. MiMedinat HaYam, the JO did have a replacement for the editor after his retirement, but it was a pure dollars and cents decision by the BaaleiBattim to close the magazine, which was no longer financially viable in a more competitive environment.
Who cares what the supposed “facts” are? The disgrace of an “obituary” is there in black on white, in a journal published by the Agudah under the supposed complete direction of the “gedolim.” And yet neither the editor, the Agudah, nor any “gadol” every expressed regret, even when explicitly asked. You can have all the supposed inside information you want, it doesn’t change the facts.
Oh, and the “ill will” didn’t “result” from this piece. It just exposed all the ill will (from the other side) that had been simmering all those years to those who hadn’t noticed or hadn’t wanted to notice.
The “facts” are important, but since facts by their very nature are not replete with internal contradictions one is left to conclude that Dan is alas bereft of the facts.
Without claiming any monopoly on the “facts”, it would seem that Wolpin was a Chareidi propagandist who used the passing of the Rav zt’l to effectively declare that “kacha yeaseh l’Gadol sheb’Yisroel asher haChareidim einam chafeitzim l’yokro.”
Sof sof it also appears that R. Tendler’s prediction has proven to be correct. Toras HaRav continues to spread far and wide. Toras Wolpin? Not so much…
How sad that it was monetary decision that cause the JO to cease publishing. For almost a half century the Agudah had a voice expressing their Hashkofo, and sadly it is no more.
Indeed, sad; it should’ve ceased long before.
Agudah hashkafa:
Including ads for NCSY, pix of women, ads for college program. All in JO. Note, Agudah has its own college programs, including MS program
2. They might have had a successor editor, but the last thing in the world they need is taking sides on internal fights. A strong personality like R Wolpin is one thing, but a successor without proper yichus? And why should they compete with Yated and hamodia?
Easy forget: The JO included article by Rabbi Lamm.
I am glad that you have the opportunity to once again vent all your frustration. Nothing that I have written expressed any value judgments regarding the advisability of the one paragraph that was published by the JO, nor the subsequent silence of the Agudah leadership. I was not defending, nor criticizing, just stating the facts, to show that the incident was generally misconstrued, though understandably so.
I’m curious which paragraph you keep referring to, because to my eyes the entire piece is disrespectful. Also, if your facts are true why wasn’t there a retraction/apology?
Also, what do you mean “Nothing that I have written expressed any value judgments regarding the advisability of the one paragraph?” You said explicitly in your first post that it was ill-advised!
I meant that I was not promoting or defending
Nu, which paragraph do you consider the most offensive?
You may have joined this conversation twenty years too late. The infamous JO statement was only one paragraph in its entirety.
Not quite one paragraph in its entirety. There is an image of the JO piece here:
https://sites.google.com/site/masliah/RYBSJO.bmp
It contains 9 paragraphs.
It was half a page and many paragraphs. There’s a link to it in this post. (Of course, one paragraph would have been pretty bad too. But it wasn’t.)
Oh, and it was twenty-seven years ago.
For a man who claims inside information, you seem woefully ill-informed. Admit it, you’re making it all up.
IMHO, RAS’s article was undoubtedly very heartfelt (as one might expect from a brother) but the import is lessened by the fact that RAS himself has been accused in TUM circles of distorting his brother’s views on TUM in a RW direction. So I think it’s possible that “Rabbi X” was attacking one interpretation of RYBS and RAS was defending a different version, and for all I know the “Rabbi X” version could have been more accurate.
I once asked R’ Pam about his reaction to the JO editorial. He said “we felt it could have been written nicer”. (My FIL, who was a talmid of R’ Pam and who was present for the exchange, thought “we” referred to the collective Moetzes, FWIW.) From his tone and language, “appalled” seems like an overstatement, but then he was not given to forceful expression, so it’s hard to say. In any event, with someone like R’ Pam it’s hard to know if his objection was the kavod of RYBS or that he objected to stirring up animosity from his followers.
Speaking of R’ Genack, he had a pretty interesting exchange of letters with R’ Ephraim Wachsman on the subject (this was back when REW was a yungerman in BMG). I thought at the time that RMG destroyed REW. I attributed this to the fact that RMG had a much better sense of what the RW counter-arguments were, while REW had really no idea of what the MO counter-arguments would be, and just repeated a bunch of jive which had gotten a good reception from a sympathetic audience in the BMG coffee room but didn’t hold up under rigorous analysis. (This dynamic has a very broad application, and explains why fringe opinions like Holocaust denial and anti-vax tend to do well in such debates, but I digress.)
It was half a page and nine paragraphs. There’s a link to it in this post. (Of course, one paragraph would have been pretty bad too. But it wasn’t.)
Oh, and it was twenty-seven years ago.
For a man who claims inside information, you seem woefully ill-informed. Admit it, you’re making it all up.
Yes, my mistake on the length of the piece, it was a long time ago. My report is still accurate, though. That’s OK. You can all still carry the burden of resentment and blame עד ביאת הגואל. As I said, it was an unfortunate mistake made by an editor, which was immediately regretted. The damage was done though, and it was decided to just let matters be.
“We’ve just insulted an entire community grievously, so now let’s just let matters be!”
That’s real Torah Judaism right there.
By the way, for a similar matter going the other way, ask some of the family why the Rav did not sign on to the 1956 (?) letter of the Roshei Yeshiva against the Synagogue Council. Negotiations were ongoing to insure the Rav’s signature, but someone close to him (who did not want him to sign) leaked the letter to the press as is. The Rav never forgave that person, as his treachery created a needless break between himself amd the Roshei Yeshiva.
Wow, you really are just making it up.
In the immortal words of a rabbi character on the X-Files, “You know nothing from nothing and I don’t want to talk to you anymore!”
Feel free to live in your fantasy world.
Do you recognize that it’s hard to take you seriously when you condescendingly tell me that I joined the conversation twenty years too late and the entire article was just a single paragraph when that does not resemble the (easily verifiable) truth in any way shape or form? What on earth were you “remembering?” Even assuming you aren’t making things up, your memory is clearly very far from reliable.
Although I personally don’t care to compare the relative merits of the two “sides,” are you comparing the official organ of the Agudah with a rogue individual? And are you dismissing Nachum’s complaint with “get over it?” Is a person supposed to “get over” insults to his rebbi?
Well, to be honest, not my rebbe- I’m too young for that- but my father’s rebbe and the rebbe of almost all of my rebbeim.
Again, I am really not making any comment about right or wrong, nor comparing who is more evil, and there is nothing personal here. I am telling you that in both cases, the facts of what transpired are quite different than the public perception. You can all figure out on your own why the Agudah did not retract subsequently, even if the incident was regrettable. Similar reasoning would explain as well why the Roshei Yeshiva and Rav Soloveichik did not issue a second letter with a nuach that was more palatable for him. Sometimes – המעוות לא יוכל לתקן. It didn’t have to happen that way, but life can be messy.
“You can all figure out on your own why the Agudah did not retract subsequently, even if the incident was regrettable.” I actually cannot figure this out, but if I ask you to explain it I wonder if you’ll respond with another snarky condescension. The best I can come up with is that all the talk about kavod hatorah, and kavod for talmidei chachamim, is just that. I’d avoid that pshat if I had another one. Then again, I can’t figure out why the famous speech taking R’ Lamm’s words totally out of context wasn’t retracted either, so maybe I’m just naive.
Nachum,
Dan is not making up his report about the Synagogue Council ban.
See here:
https://jewishaction.com/books/reviews/community-covenant-commitment-selected-letters-communications/
“In the time immediately preceding the publication of the issur there was an intense dialogue between the Rav and Rav Aharon Kotler on reaching a compromise text, to which the Rav could be a signatory. Both of these gedolim were interested in avoiding the divisions within the Orthodox community that would result from the lack of a compromise. There were two other individuals whose political interests were served by a lack of compromise. These individuals published the earlier text, thereby aborting the dialogue about a compromise text. The Rav never forgave these two individuals for creating the unfortunate tensions and acrimony that resulted from the lack of a compromise text. “
First of all, Meiselman never states what side these “two individuals” (who Dan reduces to one) were on.
Second, Meiselman is hardly a reliable witness to what his uncle believed. His view- and even more so, Dan’s- contradicts everything we know about the man, and Meiselman has previously not been above twisting the Rav’s positions to match his own.
As it happens, R’ Rakeffet, who is in fact an actual historian with a deep knowledge of this period and no axe to grind, is dealing with this very event in his current shiurim, and his version is very, very different.
Whether or not Rav Meiselman is a reliable witness is immaterial, my point is that Dan did not make up the story he wrote.
Regarding the two individuals, I know who one of them is, and I think you could describe him as close to both the Rav and Rav Aharon Kotler, so I think Dan is accurate there. I don’t know the identity of the other person mentioned in the JA article.
Was R. David Hollander one of the rabbis?
I have a copy of the original article. Even with all the lack of editing and so on, the sense of outrage of a Gadol b’Yisroel on behalf of his beloved deceased brother leaps off the page. The writing is the writing of the towering Torah personality that R’ Ahron was and the anguish that he expressed still reverberates in my memory.
It’s sad that this incident is still being rehashed so many years later. The respect that R’ Moshe and R’ Shneur had for the Rav was palpably expressed in the famous picture where they joined the Rav outside on the hotel porch at a Lakewood wedding where a single place setting had been made up for the Rav (who was in aveilus for his wife). I think the Rav would tell us all to let it go – I’m sure that in Gan Eden he was mochel. I think – and forgive me for the decidedly non-scholarly sentiment – that in Gan Eden they are all sitting together basking in the ziv ha’Shechina- the Rav, R’ Ahron, with their father , all of their grandfathers, the Gedolei Lita – in a place far from acrimony and recrimination.
Let it go? Brother, life isn’t a girls Disney movie. No one ever lets anything go.
Rav Shneur was somewhat a talmid of the Rav, having “audited” the Rav’s shiur for a while.
Please explain and give sources. I have heard reports as such and have been trying to get real sources on the matter.
R’ Rakeffet discussed it in recent shiurim. His father sent him to learn at YU. I imagine he wasn’t formally enrolled.
It’s been let go. But that doesn’t mean that the MO world, having been told by the charedi establishment what they think of them, has to forget it.
Ok ok ok. Life is not a Disney movie! The truth must come out! So I will reveal what really happened that fateful evening when they gathered to hammer out a compromise that the Rav could live with: One of the participants had brought along a tuna fish sandwich, and offered half to the Rav. The Rav demurred, saying he wasn’t all that fond of tuna fish. (There are different family traditions regarding this.) The participant, stung by the Rav’s refusal of the tuna sandwich, released the unapproved draft. (Others say the offer involved herring.) I hope this will set this important question to rest so that we all may enter the Yemei haDin v’ha’Rachamim intent on Tikun haMidot and never refusing a tuna sandwich (or herring).
The “compromise” is irrelevant, it’s just some insignificant item someone came up above with to deflect from the real issue, which remains the Agudah’s wrongful handling of the RYBS eulogy. I don’t think anyone from the MO world ever actively thinks about it, but now that’s it’s been mentioned in this piece, yes, I’m sure they haven’t forgotten it. Why would they? The Agudah never apologized. Which maybe made sense not to do at the time, but after some time they should have acknowledged it was a lack of kovod hatorah. It did hurt their credibility, reinforcing the point that for them it’s more about politics than Torah. Still a fine organization, mind you, but a mistake it definitely was.
While R’ MD Tendler made some valid “diyukim” from the JO eulogy on R’ Soloveitchik, his comment of using the customary “ZTL” after a gadols name is rendered moot, for anyone who has visited the kever in Boston, as I did with my family on a Boston vacation, can see that the family used Z”L after his name and not the expected “ZTL”!
I would disagree with that. If the JO regularly used zt”l for every rabbi who dies, and then used z”l for the Rav, that’s a slap in the face and an insult, regardless of what it says on his kever.
I would say thought that Rabbi Tendler somewhat undercut his own point by referring to the Rav as zt”l and Rav Moshe as ztvk”l.
Dear Rabbi Shapiro:
I apologize for posting this comment here, but I couldn’t find a link for general comments. Anyway, I hope you will write a review of Shmuel Phillips’ *Judaism Reclaimed,* as I believe the author’s assertions and perspective would be of interest to your readers and because your work is critically referenced in a number of places. Thanks.
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If needed, I have a copy of this 1993 article.