Creative Diversity

By: Jonathan Seidel

Machshava: between issues, insights and ideas. Rabbis Sacks and Soloveitchik books and his commentary

Machshava comes in all different shapes in sizes. Yet depending on the style and content, a specific type of thought will be established. Rabbi Sacks’ array of various books demonstrates a clear divide between different types of works. This can also be gleaned from the Rav’s works as well. Between books and articles, principal and chief rabbi or early and later years.   

Beginning with Rabbi Sacks, As he spent more time in the rabbinate his focus and style shifted. He wrote less academically and less traditionally. His style became more poetic and biblical. While the content shift inevitably led to differences as a new audience and new focus altered his liturgy the systemic aspect remained. He merely swapped R Hirsch for Charles Taylor. R Hirsch was for the traditionalists and Taylor was for the religionists. Swapping out jargon for prose. The shift is noteworthy as a varied style of machshava but at the same time was more or less the same. The difference was the audience. The audience demanded a unique approach according to their understanding. It remained systemic and issue based even if a secular thinker and a christian reader replaced the Jewish thinker and orthodox reader. 

It is this style from Tradition in an Untraditional Age to Morality that remained consistent. Each was filled with sources dedicated to the problem at hand. It was an issue based text. There is a problem in the world whether it is postmodernity or secularism and how either the Jew or the believer ought to respond. What is the way forward for tradition or faith. The contemporary issues were almost identical. Over the span of nearly thirty years nuance will emerge and issues adjusted but the objective was the same. Respond to the issue, defend and propose a new outlet. It did not matter which audience he was writing to. Each book devoted considerable effort to the issues at hand to guide the reader through the future. His appointment to the rabbinate changed the audience but maintained the mission. 

His biblical commentary, Covenant and Conversation, was instead more of sermonic wisdom. He picked an idea found in that week’s reading and would expound on it. He would bring in a traditional commentator or two alongside a secular thinker to further the idea. The goal of the modern commentator is inspiration. Easy sweet ideas simply deciphered from the narrational prose. The text provides a story that has novel ideas that can be influenced onto the reader. By combining the polished idea with a secular thinker or secular thing, R Sacks modifies the ideas for the modernist. This isn’t some ancient archaic aspect but a contemporary application. Inspired, implemented into daily life. This is throughout his commentaries on the parsha and on holidays. The bible is the bedrock of informational inspiration. Value derived and poetically written. 

His most forgotten work is his articles in Tradition. Before he began writing, he provided insights into the Rav’s work. Boldly critiquing the greatest orthodox thinker of the twentieth century. Even his review of Lamm’s Torah Umadda republished as the afterforward is a promotion but yet critique which slays at the Rav. 80s Sacks was on a mission of extrapolation and extension. Reviewing others’ works and building on them. He insightfully challenged and grappled with his predecessors. He didn’t quote his predecessor’s to assist but to challenge. These articles are pre-rabbinate. They defy his later work in its strongly academic and scholarly penmanship. Yet even his personal boldness, writing for himself and not for an audience. These were his thoughts. His argumentation was his own and insights from his analysis.  

The Sacks’ Haggadah may best represent the collision of both worlds. The Haggadah section has notes about laws and short ideas from past thinkers. Harking back to his earlier works with some of his modern lacing. Quoting points to inspire. It is a guide. Yet on the back are a number of original essays. Poking ideas of freedom and slavery with precision and erudition. Novelty combined with a contemporary response to the ailing age of the day. It is this work that attempts to cultivate a symbiotic relationship between both worlds. He has his issues and ideas brought together. Adding his own insights into the text. Originality may have followed his work but reviewing and personal application did not persist. Yet for the Haggadah there does seem to be a return to this 80s aspect. His notion of “freedom to” and “the home” are novel and intriguing. A nice callback to the old even if it shed the academic jargon. 

The Rav also wrote stylistically different between his books and articles. It wasn’t only the time but the style that shifted. While he wrote books and articles, it was the style more than the content that demonstrated the methodological trajectory. His books aren’t all uniform. There is a difference between Halakhic Man, Halakhic Mind and Uvikashtem Misham. Excluding books he did not write like Reflections of the Rav or Al Teshuva. While these may have been the transcript from his lectures, he did not write them, therefore invalidates them for this discussion but not in his thought. Yet what does count “Sacred and Profane” and the entire book of Divrei Hagut Veha’aracha which includes “Kol Dodi Dofek” and “Pilitat Sofrim”. Given his book publications stem from his own hand they are included in this analysis. It is these that demonstrate an oddity. Though not all that different from R Sacks’ Tradition in an Untraditional Age as articles strung together in a booklet. Though the latter did write his book and the former was not privy to the editorial process. 

Still it is important to recognise the differences between his works. Each of his major works in the 40s (including Halakhic Mind written in 44’ but published in 86’ and Uvikashem Misham begun in the 40s and finished in 78’) possess a fascinating systemic response to issues in the world. While each is different and motivated to a separate cause the underlying goal is halakhic centricity. Halakhic Mind spends the first three chapters discussing western philosophy and for the last twenty pages discusses halakha. In Uvikashtem Misham, halakha doesn’t grace the pages until chapter eight. The goal is to reach the halakha even if most of the beginning is just leading up to it. For Halakhic Mind, examining western philosophy ultimately leads to halakha while for Uvikashtem Misham examining Jewish theology ultimately leads to halakha. Halakha was weaning, power it back into observant homes.

His Tradition articles almost all follow a singular regimen. They all are biblical insights. Even Lonely Man of Faith which is much lengthier and soon after published in book form acted as a commentary. It even focuses more on textuality than ideas. The idea of loneliness is embedded in the text. The ideas of Catharsis, Confrontation and Majesty and Humility. Yet the uniqueness of the Rav’s ideas were his own creation. His novelty was not using Jewish terms but rather illuminating new Jewish terms. With Catharsis he contrasts the Jewish hero and the Greek hero. Heroism is the idea but it is so much more developed than providing some inspiration. The Rav also focused heavily on rabbinic literature. Including midrashim and Gemaras to prove his point. Yet in all these examples he begins with the biblical text like R Sacks’ commentary. While they are more academically laced and novelly instituted they follow a similar theme in providing ideas. 

The Rav’s insights cam presumably be found amongst his articles in Divrei Hagut Vehaaracha. His insights into briskerism through his uncle and grandfather are profoundly deep. He notes their work and its impact on learning. These eulogies spend paragraphs elucidating their unique approach to Torah learning. There is much to glean from these works. It is a shame they have yet to be translated. These insights more firmly provide a picture of the Rav’s brisker heritage. These eulogies were given around the time of his books. Therefore the brisker irk modelled in Halakhic Man and the eulogies is of little surprise. The Rav used his rabbinic knowledge as well as his brisker conceptualism to deliver beautiful hespedim. “Sacred and Profane” also fits here as its insightful halakha. The analytic power was relevant in both book and eulogy even if one was more insightful than issue based.   

“Kol Dodi Dofek” while a deep analysis with original thinking and creativity is a commentary on Shir HaShirim and Iyov. Here, he isn’t using an idea to expound but instead examining a text with a nice idea. He is using the text to prove a point not a text to authenticate his point. “Kol Dodi Dofek” may strike the balance. It is analysis of biblical works textually with much insight to the issues of the day. His use of covenant of fate and destiny is creative to the textual differences as noted in “Lonely Man of Faith”. “Kol Dodi Dofek” was the precursor to the latter written nearly a decade before. The shift following the tragedies was after the latter was written as Rebbetzin Tonya passed in 67’. The Rav’s turn to the existential dread was marked by other forces. Whatever the externalities, the once maverick halakhic centric work was now more biblically based. The Rav never did away with the rabbinic sources but his focus biblically altered to a more idea than issue focus. As the issues were couched in ideas rather than solvable problems. 

The Rav’s course to examine “Kol Dodi Dofek” as a more biblical representation and synonymous with the later articles is almost fluent. The Rav was affluent in biblical sources but then turned back to rabbinic sources. “Lonely Man of Faith” may posit Adam I v. Adam II from the first part of Genesis but the entire essay is rabbinic sources. Periodic biblical quotes but mostly rabbinic material. His later articles combined the two. Yet much of his thinking was rabbinically focused. “Kol Dodi Dofek” provides the insightful aspect but it is a quiet part of the Rav’s thought. Insights were for Talmudic learning and eulogies, not essays. Essays are issues that need to be solved. Ideas may grace the paper but it is all issues that need solving. The Rav paid little attention to ideas only using them to solve issues not to promote ideas. To some extent the ideas were more insights than ideas. He used heroism as parshan rather than a derasha. It wasn’t inspirational but decoding. It was brisker commentary in anglo-jargon. 

Through these two thinkers there is different layers of machshava for the thinker himself. Yet some are more focused on different aspects. Depending on position, education and preference. Yet all machshava is powerful. Works speak better to some than others. Each has to find that which he enjoys.