Modern Orthodox Theology in a Post-Soloveitchik World

David Fried

Review of Daniel Ross Goodman, Soloveitchik’s Children: Irving Greenberg, David Hartman, Jonathan Sacks, and the Future of Jewish Theology in America, (University of Alabama Press, 2023).^[1]

Introduction

Scholars of medieval Jewish philosophy are fond of pointing out that Maimonides fundamentally reshaped the contours of the field. Following him, all medieval Jewish philosophy is a response to him. People may agree or disagree, but no one can ignore. So it is with R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik (“the Rav”) and Modern Orthodox theology. If you want to write Modern Orthodox theology, you do so on the Rav’s playing field, even when you disagree. R. Dr. Daniel Ross Goodman’s work, based on his doctoral research at the Jewish Theological Seminary, explores three prominent theologians from the generation following the Rav. Two of them, Irving (Yitz) Greenberg and David Hartman, had close personal relationships with the Rav. The third, Jonathan Sacks, only briefly met the Rav, but was clearly deeply influenced by his writings. At the same time, all three disagreed with the Rav in key ways that the book does not shy away from discussing.

It is worth noting that, despite the title “Soloveitchik’s Children,” the book does not claim to present the totality of the Rav’s Torah legacy. Goodman is interested in the theological legacy, and therefore acknowledges upfront (17) that the book will not deal with the many students the Rav had who were interested primarily in his Talmud and not his theology. This is not in any way intended as a criticism of those students, Goodman points out. They are merely not the subject of this volume.

Goodman is also upfront that the book is not meant to be purely a dispassionate academic work. He is open (4) that part of his agenda (although he discusses it explicitly only in the Introduction and the Conclusion) is to argue that, despite their differences, all three thinkers show sufficient continuity with the Rav to be considered legitimate expressions of Modern Orthodox theology. To this end, when he discusses Greenberg and Hartman, generally considered the more radical of the three, he consistently emphasizes their similarities with the Rav’s thought (without hiding the differences). When it comes to Sacks, who is considered the more traditional one, he goes out of his way to highlight where he differed with the Rav. This makes the case that, at least sociologically, Modern Orthodox Jews will tolerate differences with the Rav in a thinker that they consider unassailably Orthodox.               

Methodology of Orthodox Theology
Before discussing specific theological doctrines, the book briefly discusses (14) methodology of Orthodox theology. At the end of The Halakhic Mind, the Rav calls for our worldview to be formulated out of the sources of halakhah.^[2] While it is not clear to what degree the Rav even follows his own mandate in his later theological writing (36), Goodman begins by assessing the extent to which each of the three thinkers under study in the book follows it. Ironically, it is Hartman, who is most likely to disagree with the Rav in substance, who most consistently builds his argument from halakhic sources. Sacks, by contrast, is the least likely to stray from the Rav in substance, and also the least likely to quote from halakhic sources, his work having occasionally been criticized for its overreliance on biblical sources rather than rabbinic ones.      

Tzelem Elokim
Following this brief methodological discussion, the book looks at a few select doctrines of each of the three thinkers, highlighting similarities with, and differences from, the Rav. All three were deeply influenced by the Rav’s understanding of tzelem Elokim (the image of God). Prior to the Rav, interpreting that phrase was primarily a question of parshanut (biblical exegesis). The Rav elevated it into a central theological tenet, particularly by connecting it with the mitzvah of ve-halakhta bi-derakhav (imitatio dei). Additionally the Rav was the first (to the best of my knowledge) to make creativity a religious value, by describing it as a fulfillment of imitatio dei. It seems obvious, in retrospect, seeing as creation is literally the first thing God is described as doing in the Torah (Genesis 1:1). Nevertheless, previous discussions of imitatio dei focused almost exclusively on the ethical attributes mentioned in talmudic discussion of the mitzvah (Shabbat 133b and Sotah 14a). Following the Rav’s lead, tzelem Elokim was a central theological tenet for all three of the thinkers under discussion, and Greenberg and Hartman both cite the Rav’s valuation of creativity as justification for their own theological creativity. Indeed, both cite the Rav directly as having encouraged their creativity, even when they disagreed with him. Tzelem Elokim was perhaps most significant to Greenberg’s thought, as he meticulously tried to explain detail upon detail of hilkhot Shabbat on its basis. It is unlikely that the Rav would have agreed with all of the details here; he was not known to like reducing complex systems to a single idea. At the same time, it is unlikely that the Rav would have found anything particularly objectionable about this aspect of Greenberg’s philosophy either.

As Goodman points out (62), Sacks’ conception of tzelem Elokim is remarkably similar to that of Greenberg, and both of them markedly different from the Rav. While both of them mention imitating God through creativity, the central theme of tzelem Elokim, for both Greenberg and Sacks, is not any particular ability we have or action we do. It is the fact that everyone is created be-tzelem Elokim, that all human beings have equal value. Goodman tries (44, 61-62) to connect this back to the Rav’s clear assertion that tzelem Elokim applies equally to men and women, and Jews and non-Jews, alike. I believe Goodman somewhat overstates the innovativeness of this position of the Rav. It is certainly true that the position that non-Jews were less be-tzelem Elokim than Jews had been the more popular one for 500 years prior to the Rav, but it is without a doubt against the plain sense of both biblical and rabbinic thought. Adam, after all, is created be-tzelem Elokim before there were Jews or non-Jews in the world. The Mishnah in Avot (3:14) specifically contrasts tzelem Elokim, which applies to “Adam,” with being “children of God,” which applies only to Jews. It is those who want to maintain a difference between Jews and non-Jews with regard to tzelem Elokim who must be on the defensive when it comes to explaining these sources.^[3] Furthermore, while one might find a source or two that say such a thing, I am not aware of the distinction between men and women with regard to tzelem Elokim ever being a prominent theological position.

I would like to suggest an alternative source for Greenberg’s and Sacks’ conception of tzelem Elokim that, to the best of my knowledge, no one has suggested previously. The Rav’s brother, R. Ahron Soloveichik, connects the idea of tzelem Elokim with the halakhic principle of kevod ha-beriyyot (human dignity), and uses this as his basis for a Torah imperative to support the Civil Rights movement.^[4] Greenberg’s and Sacks’ conceptions seem to bear far more in common with this approach than with that of the Rav, and further research is warranted into the influence of R. Ahron Soloveichik on their thought.              

Submission as a Religious Value
Despite the strong influence of Adam I (the creative one) from the Rav’s The Lonely Man of Faith on each of these figures, none of them were particularly enamored with Adam II, the more submissive, contemplative type. One of Sacks’ earliest, and less-well-known, writings was a critique of The Lonely Man of Faith (33-34). In it, he argues for a more harmonious religious personality, rather than living in constant tension between the Adam I and Adam II parts. Greenberg and Hartman take the critique a step further, each (but especially Hartman) expressing deep discomfort with submissiveness as a religious virtue. Along these lines, Hartman offers an extensive critique of the role of the akeidah in the Rav’s thought, decrying the valorization of submission to an inscrutable God. In Hartman’s view, our commitment to the Torah must exist in harmony with our ethical sensibilities, and the former should never demand that we sacrifice the latter.

It is worth pointing out that the Rav’s akeidah is not Kierkegaard’s “teleological suspension of the ethical.” Never once does the Rav suggest that he believes in a God who might genuinely command the unethical. Rather, it is about trusting that God has better judgment of what is ethical in any given situation than we do. Indeed, within The Lonely Man of Faith, it is Adam II, the submissive personality, who has the ethical sensibilities, and Adam I, the more active one, who does not. For the Rav, submission to the Torah was identical with submission to ethics.^[5]

Sacks, for his part (39-40), criticized Hartman and Greenberg not for demanding harmony between halakhah and ethics, but for what he perceived as their unquestioning acceptance of certain key modern values in how they evaluated the ethical. It is worth pointing out that, buried in a footnote (190, n. 160), Goodman acknowledges that he shares this judgment (at least with respect to Hartman). Despite being buried in a footnote, this really is a crucial point. Goodman is no liberal politically. He is a regular writer at several right-leaning publications. His passionate defense of Greenberg’s and Hartman’s Orthodoxy should not be taken as agreement with their politics, and is all the more admirable (whether or not one agrees with his conclusion) knowing that he does not agree.

Dialectical Thinking
The eschewing of Adam II by all three of these figures points to another key difference between them and the Rav, which Goodman discusses (81-87). Dialectical thinking, or the ability to hold seemingly contradictory ideas, like the need to be both active and passive in one’s religiosity, was a key part of the Rav’s thought. To some degree (Sacks the most and Hartman the least, with Greenberg somewhere in the middle), each of these thinkers engages this as well. However, a great number of their disagreements with the Rav can be summed up as only liking one side of the Rav’s dialectic. Additionally, especially with Sacks, his dialectics are often a stepping stone towards some grand synthesis. His signature “Torah and Chochmah,” for instance, was about creating a harmonious religious personality (as he had argued for in his critique of The Lonely Man of Faith) that incorporated the two, not about living in constant tension between the two along “a narrow, twisting footway that threads its course along the steep mountain slope, as the terrible abyss yawns at [one’s] feet.”^[6] This explains why, to greater or lesser degrees, Hartman, Greenberg, and Sacks had more popular appeal than the Rav did.^[7] A life of constant tension might work for a small cadre of intellectual elite, but it simply won’t sell to the masses.

Interfaith Dialogue
The book devotes a whole chapter to interfaith dialogue, an area where all three disagreed with at least the prima facie view of the Rav. In his famous essay, “Confrontation,” the Rav laid out a policy, which the Rabbinical Council of America subsequently adopted as normative, of restricting interfaith dialogue to areas of social or humanitarian concern, excluding discussion of theology or doctrine (109-110).^[8] Despite this, Hartman, Greenberg, and Sacks all engaged in interfaith dialogue of a theological nature. Notwithstanding the apparent conflict with “Confrontation,” none of the three saw their participation as representing a major break with the Rav. Hartman and Greenberg describe taking a “do as I did, not as I wrote” (115) approach to the Rav’s view on interfaith dialogue. The Rav’s writings are, after all, filled with substantive engagement with Christian theologians, and each of the three described learning to appreciate Christian theologians from the Rav. By participating in interfaith theological dialogue, they were merely continuing in person what the Rav began in print. Again, despite what he wrote in “Confrontation,” it is not even clear that the Rav himself believed that interfaith theological dialogue was truly forbidden. As Goodman points out (114), the Rav initially presented The Lonely Man of Faith as a lecture to St. John’s Catholic Seminary in Brighton, MA. Perhaps the greatest irony, though, as Goodman quotes from David Shatz (114), is that much of the content of “Confrontation” itself is borrowed from Christian theologian Karl Barth.

While Goodman does a good job showing that the Rav was not categorically opposed to interfaith theological dialogue, despite what he wrote in “Confrontation,” he could have gone a step further. A close reading will reveal that “Confrontation” itself may be the best source from the Rav for Hartman, Greenberg, and Sacks’ moderate religious pluralism. The first thing that must be pointed out is what “Confrontation” does not say. If one were looking to forbid interfaith theological dialogue, it would not be very difficult. One need only cite Deuteronomy 12:30, “Beware of being lured into their ways after they have been wiped out before you! Do not inquire about their gods, saying, ‘How did those nations worship their gods? I too will follow those practices.’” Learning the “wrong” theologies of other religions bears the risk of corrupting our “correct” theology, and therefore must be forbidden. This is likely the sensibility of the Rav’s more right-wing students who latched on to an interpretation of “Confrontation” that absolutely forbade interfaith theological dialogue. It is thus extremely notable that “Confrontation” does not, at any point, quote this verse. Nor does the Rav, at any point, refer to Jewish theology as “correct” or to other religions’ theology as “incorrect.”^[9] Let us start by looking at the excerpt that Goodman presents:

The word, in which the multifarious religious experience is expressed does not lend itself to standardization or universalization. The word of faith reflects the intimate, the private, the paradoxically inexpressible cravings of the individual for and his linking up with his Maker. It reflects the numinous character and the strangeness of the act of faith of a particular community which is totally incomprehensible to the man of faith community. Hence it is important that the religious or theological logos should not be employed as the medium of communication between two faith communities whose modes of expression are as unique as their apocalyptic experiences. The confrontation should occur not at a theological, but at a mundane human level. There all of us speak the universal language of modern man. (109-110)

The Rav’s primary concern here is about the incommunicability of the faith experience between one faith community and another. He does not fear Jews being corrupted by the theology of other religions, but expresses concern for each religion’s uniqueness being respected. Indeed, he appeals not to any biblical verse to justify his prescriptions but to ideals of “religious democracy and liberalism.”^[10]

It is difficult to read “Confrontation” as expressing a halakhic prohibition on interfaith theological dialogue. The entire first section of the essay,^[11] before the Rav even mentions interfaith dialogue, is an extended analogy setting up his discussion. He compares the incommunicability of the religious experience between members of different faith communities with the incommunicability of the subjective experience between any two human beings, even close friends or a husband and wife. I can hardly imagine that the Rav would prohibit a husband and wife from trying to communicate their experiences with each other because they will never be able to fully appreciate them. Indeed, he calls for communication to take place in a manner that respects the otherness of the other rather than objectifying the other by trying to assimilate their experiences into terms that relate to mine. Taking the analogy to its logical conclusion, it would seem that interfaith theological dialogue should not be problematic either, provided it takes place on these terms. His concerns seem to lie more in theological debate, with one religion making arguments for what another religion should believe, than with theological dialogue, where we simply listen to one another, respecting their subjective otherness. Historically, we know that the Rav was particularly concerned with Jewish participation in the Second Vatican Council, not wanting Jews to tell Catholics how to practice Catholicism any more than we would want Catholics telling us how to practice Judaism (107-109).

Taking  a step deeper into the theology of “Confrontation,” there are two primary schools of thought when it comes to the phenomenology of religious experiences: perennialism and constructivism. Perennialism was popularized in William James’ classic, The Varieties of Religious Experience.^[12] The basic idea is that there are certain core religious experiences that can be studied cross-culturally and exist independent of the particular religious dogmas of the individual practitioner. The constructivist critique of this idea is that it papers over real and significant differences between religions in trying to find their commonality. Instead, constructivism argues that religious experiences are constructed out of our unique social-cultural setting and theological commitments. The religious experiences of two people with different dogmas are therefore fundamentally different. The Rav strikes a clear constructivist tone in “Confrontation.”^[13] Constructivism has its roots in a soft postmodernism that views all human experiences as fundamentally culturally constructed.^[14] I would never claim that the Rav was a postmodernist, but, of all his writings, “Confrontation” appears to me the one where he most flirts with it.^[15] Thus, the religious pluralism, or even the soft postmodernism, of Hartman, Greenberg, and Sacks, may paradoxically actually find their greatest support from the Rav in the underlying theology of “Confrontation,” even if they disagreed with its normative conclusion.

Post-Holocaust Theology
The final chapter of the book (prior to the Conclusion) is dedicated to post-Holocaust theology, home to what is arguably Greenberg’s most controversial idea: voluntary covenant. He argues that the Holocaust severed the original covenant between God and the Jewish people, as nothing we could have done could have possibly justified that level of horror and suffering. Thus, our choice to remain committed to the covenant is voluntary. He strongly encourages us to make that commitment, as he believes it will strengthen our relationship with God, but he will pass no moral judgment over those who choose not to. Goodman readily acknowledges (133) that there is no way the Rav would have agreed with this idea. Nonetheless, he demonstrates that Greenberg’s ideas were still fundamentally built upon those that the Rav laid out in Kol Dodi Dofek. Prior to the Holocaust, the standard Jewish response to national tragedy could best be summarized by the  Musaf shel Yom Tov service: “U-mipenei hata’einu galinu me-artzeinu, (because of our sins, we were exiled from our land)” (134). There was always the acknowledgment that we couldn’t necessarily say that every individual deserved their suffering, but, at least on the national level, suffering was assumed to be the product of sin. Indeed, many thinkers did attempt to apply this to the Holocaust as well. Kol Dodi Dofek, though, offered a fundamentally different approach. We do not try to explain why suffering happens. We ask only what the proper response to it is. To be sure, our tradition has always admitted that we cannot explain all suffering,^[16] but this was an admission made with our back to the wall after we tried and failed to come up with an explanation. No one prior to the Rav made not asking why into a central tenet of their theodicy. Only this rejection of the mi-penei hata’einu theodicy enabled Greenberg to claim that the Holocaust had severed the original covenant. Sacks and Hartman figure much less prominently in this chapter. Sacks sometimes used language similar to Greenberg but stopped short of Greenberg’s radical conclusion, hewing much closer to Kol Dodi Dofek (147-152). Hartman, for his part, explicitly rejected Greenberg’s voluntary covenant (152-155) and claimed to have “no theology of history,” denying that anything about his thought was impacted by the Holocaust.

Evaluation
Goodman’s book is certainly well-researched, well-written, and compellingly demonstrates the deep influence the Rav had on Hartman, Greenberg, and Sacks, despite their sometimes differing with him. Goodman’s discussion of Greenberg is particularly rich, filled with heretofore unpublished material from private conversations and public lectures. His discussion of Sacks, while limited to published material, dives deep into his writings, and will give the reader an understanding that goes far beyond his most popular works. When it comes to Hartman, on the other hand, I do not feel like the book gave me a particularly deep understanding of his theology. He is often presented as simply agreeing with Greenberg, with the occasional note when he disagrees (such as in the post-Holocaust theology). Goodman refers to Hartman as “the disciple…who departed from Soloveitchik the furthest” (159), and I could not honestly tell you why. It is hard for me to imagine a further departure from Soloveitchik than Greenberg’s voluntary covenant, and Hartman specifically disagreed on that point.

My biggest critique of the book is not for anything in it, but for what is not included in it. I do not understand how a book on the major theological heirs of the Rav could exclude R. Aharon Lichtenstein. Goodman appears to group him together with those students of the Rav who were interested only in his Talmud and not his theology (17-18), which would be a gross mischaracterization. Lichtenstein wrote extensively on theology. Indeed, the teachers today most likely to be teaching the Rav’s theology (not merely his Talmud) in their classrooms are students of R. Lichtenstein. What’s more, many of Sacks’ critiques of Greenberg and Hartman that Goodman discusses initially derive from R. Lichtenstein. And, like the others featured in this book, R. Lichtenstein did not always agree with the Rav either, preferring, for instance, humanistic philosophers over the Rav’s preferred neo-Kantians.^[17] It is hard to imagine anyone more deserving of the moniker “Soloveitchik’s child” than his literal son-in-law, R. Lichtenstein.

What of Goodman’s central thesis that all three bodies of work, despite their departures from the Rav, should be considered legitimate Orthodox theology? Again, to me, the most controversial idea presented in the book is clearly Greenberg’s voluntary covenant. There is hardly a more central idea to Orthodox theology than the absolute binding nature of halakhah. Of course, Greenberg himself is fully committed to halakhah, so the question is: Exactly what did he mean when he said the covenant is voluntary? If he meant merely that we should not pass moral judgment on those who choose to be irreligious in a post-Holocaust world, it is not really all that radical, and many traditional-minded thinkers have expressed similar ideas. Hazon Ish (Yoreh Deah 2:16) writes:

It appears that the law of [punishing heretics] only applies at a time when God’s providence is revealed like at a time when miracles were common, they would regularly hear heavenly voices, and it was apparent to everyone that the righteous of the generation were under special divine protection… But in a time of [divine] hiddenness when many people’s faith has been destroyed, [punishing heretics] will not repair the breach, it will add to the breach… [Instead], it is incumbent upon us to bring them back with love.

Hazon Ish also sees our present historical reality as fundamentally altering the way we ought to relate to the irreligious. There may be no practical difference (nafka minah) between what Hazon Ish said and what Greenberg said. Nevertheless, Hazon Ish manages to sound a lot more Orthodox with his rhetoric than Greenberg does. That may not matter in terms of the Orthodoxy of Greenberg’s personal beliefs as an individual, but if you want your ideas to be accepted by the Orthodox community, rhetoric matters. In fact, in R. Lichtenstein’s famous letter to Greenberg,^[18] the bulk of his criticism concerns Greenberg’s rhetorical style rather than the substance of his beliefs. Greenberg definitely has a tendency to write in a way designed to stir controversy and to later clarify that what he is actually calling for is far less radical than it sounded. This really gets to the heart of the issue of whether Greenberg and Hartman’s thought should be considered Orthodox. A mentor of mine once put it succinctly: “The Orthodox community will tolerate theological innovation and it will tolerate halakhic innovation, but it won’t tolerate both from the same person. If your innovative halakhah is grounded in innovative theology, there’s nothing remaining to tether you to the Orthodox community.” Greenberg and Hartman definitely pushed the Orthodox theological envelope as far as they could. But whether they pushed it too far ultimately depends on just how far they were willing to go with it on a practical level. Both were shul rabbis at one point in their careers, and no doubt answered halakhic shaylos from congregants. To what extent were their answers to these shaylos rooted in their theology? The answer to that question is not something that can be gleaned from the material presented in Goodman’s book.

^[1] All page numbers, unless noted otherwise, refer to this volume.

^[2] Joseph B. Soloveitchik, The Halakhic Mind, (Free Press, 1986), 102.

^[3] See, for instance, Maharal, Tiferet Yisrael, Chapter 1.

^[4] Ahron Soloveichik, “Civil Rights and the Dignity of Man,” in Logic of the Heart, Logic of the Mind (Genesis Jerusalem Press, 1991), 61-68. While the article was first published in 1991, many years after Greenberg published his ideas, it has its roots in a speech Soloveichik delivered to the National Council of Young Israel conference in 1964, which certainly could have influenced Greenberg. My thanks to Alan Brill for bringing this speech to my attention.

^[5] See, however, Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Halakhic Morality, (Maggid, 2017), 181-191, where the Rav does make a clear distinction between objective halakhic law and subjective halakhic morality. As this was a posthumously published manuscript, it obviously would not have figured into Greenberg, Hartman, or Sacks’ understanding of the Rav’s theology, although it is possible that he expressed some of the ideas orally in his lifetime.

^[6] Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Halakhic Man, trans. Lawrence Kaplan ( Jewish Publication Society, 1983), 142 n. 4.

^[7] Acknowledging, of course, that Sacks was the only one of the three with widespread popular appeal within the mainstream Orthodox world.

^[8] It should be pointed out that even permitting dialogue around social and humanitarian concerns was groundbreaking compared with positions that had been taken by more right-wing Orthodox groups.

^[9] This was first pointed out to me by Maharat Rori Picker Neiss, c. 2011.

^[10] “Confrontation,” 23.

^[11] Ibid., 5-17.

^[12] William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, (Modern Library, 1902).

^[13] I am at a loss to explain the Rav’s familiarity with constructivism at this time, as the primary works on religious constructivism were published at least a decade after “Confrontation.” Nevertheless, I have learned over the years that the Rav read a lot more than I did, and there must have been works laying the groundwork for religious constructivism that he was able to read already in 1964.

^[14] The hard postmodernist would extend this to all truth claims as well, but one need not go this far in order to believe in religious constructivism.

^[15] There is also a strange postmodernism in the Rav’s tendency to describe personality types (Halakhic Man, Homo Religiosus, Man of Faith, etc.) rather than offering arguments for why one ought to or ought not to be one or the other of the personality types. R. Assaf Bednarsh pointed out to me that the Rav did for philosophy what his grandfather, Rav Chaim, did for Talmud: shifting the question from trying to prove who’s right to merely describing the assumptions underlying each position. Years ago, when we were both students in Yeshivat Har Etzion together, R. Ben Greenfield said he wanted to write an article on the unconscious postmodernism of Brisker lomdus. Ben, if you’re reading this, I still look forward to reading that article.

^[16] See Avot 4:15 and Berakhot 7a.

^[17] For a fuller discussion of the influence of the Rav on Lichtenstein’s thought and where the two differed, see R. Nathaniel Helfgot’s discussion here: https://traditiononline.org/divrei-ha-rav-ve-divrei-ha-talmid-ve-divrei-ha-rav-the-impact-of-rabbi-joseph-b-soloveitchiks-thought-on-that-of-r-aharon-lichtenstein/.

^[18] Aharon Lichtenstein, “Rav Lichtenstein Writes Letter to Dr. Greenberg,” The Commentator, Jun. 2, 1966.