Soloveitchik's Children: Irving Greenberg, David Hartman, Jonathan Sacks, and the Future of Jewish Theology in America

By Daniel Ross Goodman

A revealing account of the three main disciples of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, an essential figure in Orthodox Judaism in America

Orthodox Judaism is one of the fastest-growing religious communities in contemporary American life. Anyone who wishes to understand more about Judaism in America will need to consider the tenets and practices of Orthodox Judaism: who its adherents are, what they believe in, what motivates them, and to whom they turn for moral, intellectual, and spiritual guidance.

Among those spiritual leaders none looms larger than Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, heir to the legendary Talmudic dynasty of Brisk and a teacher and ordainer of thousands of rabbis during his time as a Talmud teacher at Yeshiva University from the Second World War until the 1980s. Soloveitchik was not only a Talmudic authority but a scholar of Western philosophy. While many books and articles have been written about Soloveitchik’s legacy and his influence on American Orthodoxy, few have looked carefully at his disciples in Torah and Talmud study, and even fewer at his disciples in Jewish thought and philosophy.

Soloveitchik’s Children: Irving Greenberg, David Hartman, Jonathan Sacks, and the Future of Jewish Theology in America is the first book to study closely three of Soloveitchik’s major disciples in Jewish thought and philosophy: Rabbis Irving (“Yitz”) Greenberg, David Hartman, and Jonathan Sacks. Daniel Ross Goodman narrates how each of these three major modern Jewish thinkers learned from and adapted Soloveitchik’s teachings in their own ways, even while advancing his philosophical and theological legacy.

The story of religious life and Judaism in contemporary America is incomplete without an understanding of how three of the most consequential Jewish thinkers of this generation adapted the teachings of one of the most consequential Jewish thinkers of the previous generation. Soloveitchik’s Children tells this gripping intellectual and religious story in a learned and engaging manner, shining a light on where Jewish religious thought in the United States currently stands—and where it may be heading in future generations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University Alabama Press
• Release date: Jul 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9780817394622

Book preview

Praise for Soloveitchik’s Children

"An audacious and learned book, Soloveitchik’s Children ranks among the very best studies of contemporary Anglo-American Orthodox Jewish theology, and debuts a scholar of unusual breadth and depth. Anyone interested in the thought of Irving Greenberg, David Hartman, and Jonathan Sacks, including their agreements and disagreements with one another, and also with the teacher they revered, Joseph Soloveitchik, should savor this volume—text and notes alike."

—Jonathan D. Sarna, author of American Judaism: A History

"In Soloveitchik’s Children, Goodman presents an incisive portrait of modern Orthodox Jewish thought as presented by its greatest exemplars of the past century—Joseph Soloveitchik, Irving Yitz Greenberg, David Hartman, and Jonathan Sacks. Goodman’s erudition and rabbinic knowledge permit him to identify both the major concerns of his subjects and to provide an appropriate intellectual framework for his analysis of these men. No one has written as comprehensive a book-length work on this school of thinkers as Goodman has. He demonstrates a complete command of the writings of the four men featured in this work and superbly describes two generations of modern Orthodox Jewish thinkers who provide a foundation for future contributors to this school of thought—and I suspect that Goodman will be included in that number one day."

—David Ellenson, author of Jewish Meaning in a World of Choice: Studies in Tradition and Modernity

This important study illuminates the diverse and lasting legacy of Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, who remains, thirty years after his death, the towering figure of American Jewish Orthodoxy. Soloveitchik is most often publicly claimed as a defender of the unchanging contours of Orthodoxy, but by focusing on his diverse reception in the theologies of Greenberg, Hartman, and Sacks, Daniel Ross Goodman shows that Soloveitchik’s traditionalism was as innovative as it was traditional. Anyone interested in the possibilities and future of Jewish Orthodoxy in America will have much to learn from this stimulating book.

—Leora Batnitzky, author of How Judaism Became a Religion: An Introduction to Modern Jewish Thought

An excellent starting point for understanding Soloveitchik’s theological legacy among his most prominent students. This rich and accessible study inaugurates a new chapter in the intellectual history of Modern Orthodoxy across the globe.

—Eliyahu Stern, Yale University

In his important study of the great twentieth-century Orthodox Jewish theologian Joseph Soloveitchik and his enduring legacy, Daniel Ross Goodman gives us profound and fascinating insights. His book is a highly original analysis of contemporary trends in Jewish thought.

—Susannah Heschel, editor of Abraham Joshua Heschel: Essential Writings

SOLOVEITCHIK’S CHILDREN

JEWS AND JUDAISM: HISTORY AND CULTURE

SERIES EDITORS

Mark K. Bauman

Adam D. Mendelsohn

FOUNDING EDITOR

Leon J. Weinberger

ADVISORY BOARD

Tobias Brinkmann

Ellen Eisenberg

David Feldman

Kirsten Fermaglich

Jeffrey S. Gurock

Nahum Karlinsky

Richard Menkis

Riv-Ellen Prell

Mark A. Raider

Raanan Rein

Jonathan Schorsch

Stephen J. Whitfield

Marcin Wodzinski

SOLOVEITCHIK’S CHILDREN

Irving Greenberg, David Hartman, Jonathan Sacks, and the Future of Jewish Theology in America

DANIEL ROSS GOODMAN

The University of Alabama Press

Tuscaloosa

The University of Alabama Press

Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487-0380

uapress.ua.edu

Copyright © 2023 by the University of Alabama Press

All rights reserved.

Inquiries about reproducing material from this work should be addressed to the University of Alabama Press.

Typeface: Cardo and Adobe Jenson Pro

Cover image: Detail from Aristotle with a Bust of Homer, 1663, by Rembrandt van Rijn; oil on canvas, 56 ½ × 53 ¾ in.; the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Cover design: Sandy Turner Jr.

Cataloging-in-Publication data is available from the Library of Congress.

ISBN: 978-0-8173-2166-6 (cloth)

ISBN: 978-0-8173-6092-4 (paper)

E-ISBN: 978-0-8173-9462-2

לע״נ הרב יעקב צבי בן דוד אריה זצ״ל

In Beloved Memory of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks zt"l

The body dies but the spirit flows on. A generation dies but another is born. Lives may end but life does not. Those who live after us continue what we began, and we live on in them. Life is a never-ending stream, and a trace of us is carried onward to the future.

—Rabbi Sacks, Covenant and Conversation, Chukat-Balak 5780, June 22, 2020

And for Alan L. Mittleman

Contents

Preface

Introduction

1. Greenberg, Hartman, Sacks

2. The Influence of Soloveitchik upon Greenberg, Hartman, and Sacks

3. Interfaith Dialogue and Interreligious Theology

4. Post-Holocaust Theology

Conclusion: Soloveitchik’s Children and the Future of Jewish Theology in America

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Figures

Preface

Halakhic man reflects two opposing selves. These were the first words ever published by Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, in his great masterpiece Halakhic Man. Rabbi Soloveitchik’s second vital work of Jewish thought, The Lonely Man of Faith, begins with his delineating of his thesis of dual man—that there is not only one Adam but two: two Adams, two men, two fathers of mankind, two types, two representatives of humanity. The idea of duality is central to Rabbi Soloveitchik’s thought, and it is a notion that is particularly prominent in the thought of his philosophical and theological disciples as well.

Soloveitchik’s Children is a book that reflects two opposing selves. On the one hand, it is a book of scholarship on Jewish religious thought that analyzes and elucidates some of the core concerns of three of the most significant and influential Jewish thinkers of our time. It reflects years of training and education in the techniques and methodologies of scholarship in religious thought, philosophy, history, and comparative literature. On the other hand, it is also a book of Jewish religious thought that assesses the theologies of these thinkers in light of the canonical texts of the Jewish tradition while also engaging in the practice of Jewish theology itself. It is the fruit of years of training and education in yeshivas and institutions of Jewish learning, the result of years of cleaving to the dust of the feet of those great sages of our generation who had the fortune of doing the same with the great sages of the previous generation. It is a book that believes in the imperative of fealty to the academic disciplines and scholarly methodologies of comprehensive research, critical analysis, and dispassionate evaluation. It is also a book that believes in the imperative of fealty to the Jewish tradition, of masorah—to the belief that it is the task of our generation to receive the teachings of the sages of the prior generation and to transmit them faithfully to the students and potential sages of the next one. And it is a book that believes that the best way of accomplishing this task is by engendering a passionate love of learning and desire for truth in the students and potential sages of the next generation. Soloveitchik’s Children is not one book but two: a scholarly work on Jewish thought, and a religious work of Jewish theology.

Because of Soloveitchik’s Children’s dual nature, those who approach the thought of Rabbi Soloveitchik and his students from a more traditional Jewish religious perspective—those who are more at home in the methods and manners of study typically encountered in yeshivas, kollels, batei medresh, and synagogue study groups—may be unsatisfied by this book’s academic and scholarly approach to these sages. And those who prefer to approach the thought of Rabbi Soloveitchik and his students from a more scholarly perspective—those who are more at home in the methods and manners of study typically encountered in academic philosophy and religious studies departments—may not be satisfied by this book’s occasional traditional Jewish approach to these thinkers. Religious-minded readers may not be pleased with this book’s predominant lack of the usage of honorific R’s prior to the names of the rabbinic figures this books studies—a necessity because of the scholarly, academic conventions of writing to which this book adheres; academic-minded readers may not be pleased with this book’s occasional usage of those honorifics or its occasional employment of a yeshiva-influenced (rather than purely academic) transliteration style. For those who are dissatisfied with either aspect of this book, I ask for your tolerance and forbearance and ask that you recall the dual nature of the work. Soloveitchik’s Children cannot be omnibus omnia—all things to all people—but it is my hope that it will be a shitah mekubetzes on the thinkers it discusses: a book in which many people will find many good things. Above all, it is my hope that Soloveitchik’s Children will inspire this and coming generations of students and scholars to study these thinkers, drink thirstily from their thought, and engage enthusiastically in the study (and practice) of Jewish thought and Jewish theology.

The story of how this book that you are holding in your hands came to be is another story for another time, v’ein kan makom le’ha’arikh. I merely wish here to thank the many people who helped bring it into existence. First and foremost, I would like to thank Dan Waterman, editor-in-chief of the University of Alabama Press, who believed in this book from its very inception and who has been so helpful and supportive at every stage of the long, arduous, rather rigorous but eminently worthwhile process of academic publishing. My profound thanks as well to Mark K. Bauman and Adam Mendelsohn, Joanna Jacobs, Irina du Quenoy, the press’s editorial board, the entire University of Alabama Press editorial team and production staff, and the anonymous peer reviewers, whose comments and critiques on the manuscript were invaluable in enabling me to create the best book possible on the philosophical students of Rabbi Soloveitchik.

Alan Mittleman, one of the preeminent scholars of Jewish thought of our time, was instrumental in helping me hone my thinking and scholarly approach to this book. It is to him that this book is dedicated, because without him this book may not have ever been born—and if it were, it certainly wouldn’t be Soloveitchik’s Children.

Much of this book was written during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and lengthy lockdown that lasted from March 2020 well into the year 2021. I am tremendously grateful to the exceptionally devoted, indispensable librarians of the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary—and to Ina Cohen in particular—and the many librarians and library staff of the Butler Library at Columbia University for helping me not only track down every book I needed but for ensuring that these books could be mailed to me (and that I could return them by mail) while the libraries were closed. This book could not have been written without you. I am also profoundly grateful to the numerous individuals who assisted me with the research and writing—from everyone who took the time to answer my questions about the thinkers discussed herein and their thought, and to those who helped me find documents, dissertations, photographs, and citations. I further extend gratitude to those whose comments also assisted me substantially in my approach to various aspects of this book: Daniel Landes, Jonathan Milgram, Joshua Feigelson, Bruce Herzberg, Deborah Lipstadt, Eugene Korn, Nathaniel Helfgot, Shalom Carmy, Mary C. Boys, Yonatan Brafman, Shlomo Zuckier, David Wolkenfeld, David Roskies, Justin Pines, Sam Greenberg, Sabra Waxman, Ruthie Simon, Mike Rosenberg, Zev Eleff, Shuli Berger, Sara Saiger, Deena Schwimmer, Joanna Benarroch, Louise Gould, and Jack Wertheimer. This book, of course, would also not be here without the continual love, support, and encouragement of my parents, Alan and Joan Goodman, and without the love and sustenance of HaKadosh Baruch Hu. I would also like to convey my profound gratitude to the Department of Systematic Theology of the University of Salzburg for their generous support of my scholarly work in Jewish theology, and to Professor Gregor Maria Hoff for welcoming me into the University of Salzburg’s theological community.

Rabbi Dr. Yitz Greenberg was remarkably open in discussing many aspects of his thought and theology with me at various stages of my research and writing. I was enormously fortunate to have been able to study with him while in rabbinical school, and consider the relationship I have with him—one of the greatest Jewish theologians of our time—to be one of the greatest blessings of my life. I am deeply grateful to Rabbi Greenberg for these many conversations—for his warmth of heart and generosity of spirit—and to Blu Greenberg for her responses to my queries and for her participation in some of the interviews that I conducted with Rabbi Greenberg.

Rabbi David Hartman had passed away roughly seven years prior to the beginning of my work on this project, but I had thought that I would have the opportunity to speak to both Rabbi Greenberg and Rabbi Sacks in the course of research. Alas, this was not to be the case. Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks passed away midway through my journey in the writing of Soloveitchik’s Children. It was a colossal loss for klal Yisrael, and as well for me personally, less so because it deprived me of the opportunity to speak to him for the purposes of this book as I was able to do with Rabbi Greenberg (although this was a significant loss in its own right), but more so because he was my teacher, guide, and role model for many years in my life’s journey through Jewish thought and theology—a lighthouse illuminating the way for all ships (including mine) seeking to find their ports. The lamp inside the lighthouse has now been extinguished, but the light still burns very bright. My profound hope is that this book will help that ner tamid—that eternal light of ethical, intellectual, and spiritual inspiration—shine even brighter and reach even more intellectual and spiritual voyagers.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, Soloveitchik’s Children could not have been written without my having spent many years as a student in the institution that Rabbi Soloveitchik for so many years called home: Yeshiva University. The presence of Rabbi Soloveitchik in that university is like that of Mozart in Salzburg; you are steeped in the sounds of their celebrated compositions—immersed in mikvahs of music and saturated in sublime arias of majestic chidushei Torah—and cannot help but marvel at how such mastery of form and prolificacy (as well as originality) of output was achieved by the mind of a single man. It was one of the great blessings of my life to have graduated from both Yeshiva University High School for Boys and Yeshiva College, where I studied with and attended the classes of many of Rabbi Soloveitchik’s students. It was they who first sparked my interest in his thought, and in the ways in which his teachings were being conveyed to us, Rabbi Soloveitchik’s grandchildren—the students of his students. These individuals are too numerous to name here, but I wish to thank one in particular. Rabbi Baruch Pesach Mendelson, my high school rebbe in YUHSB (also known as the Marsha Stern Talmudical Academy / MTA), was (and still very much is) a talmid not of the Rav but of the Rav’s brother, Rabbi Ahron Soloveitchik. Rabbi Mendelson, through transmitting and embodying Rav Ahron’s approach to learning, allowed me to glean different, richer perspectives on the Rav and his extended family—the storied Brisk dynasty of rabbinic scholarship—than I would have been able to had I not been in Rabbi Mendelson’s shiur. Even more importantly, Rabbi Mendelson further emblazoned in me the flame for learning which had already been kindled, helping it grow even stronger and radiate even wider. My scholarly activities may have taken me in a somewhat different path than the one I believed I was destined to follow during my years at MTA, but the same drive I had then—the ardent aspiration to be (in Rabbi Mendelson’s words) a "mevakesh," a passionate seeker of the truth—is still the same desire that animates my current pursuits in the scholarly study of Jewish thought and in my engagement with the field of Jewish theology. It is that desire, along with the inheritance in Jewish learning that I have received from countless other teachers—from my elementary school studies at Heritage Academy in Longmeadow, Massachusetts, to my yeshiva studies at Yeshivat Kerem B’Yavneh in Israel to my years at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America and Columbia University in New York—that animates this book.

I wish to close this preface—and to begin Soloveitchik’s Children—with the last words that Rabbi Sacks zt"l ever said to me, extending them to each and every reader of this long-dreamt-about and finally-realized book: May you be a blessing for klal Yisrael.

אמר רבי שמואל בר נחמני א״ר יונתן כל המלמד בן חבירו תורה

מעלה הכתוב כאילו ילדו שנאמר (במדבר ג,א)

ואלה תולדות אהרן ומשה וכתיב ואלה שמות בני אהרן לומר לך

.אהרן ילד ומשה לימד לפיכך נקראו על שמו

:סנהדרין יט -

ואלה תולדות אהרן ומשה (שם ג, א). מלמד שכל המלמד בן חבירו

תורה כאילו ילדו (סנהדרין יט, ב). ולא תאמרו כאילו ילדו ולא

ילדו ממש, כי אדרבה הוא ילדו בעצמו. כי אביו ואמו נתנו לו

.הגוף, והרב משפיע בו נשמה

של״ה הקדוש, תורה שבכתב, במדבר ג -

Man vergilt einem Lehrer schlecht, wenn man immer nur der Schüler bleibt.

One repays a teacher badly if one remains only a pupil.

—Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo

Introduction

You say there is no religion now. ’Tis like saying in rainy weather, There is no sun.¹ Ralph Waldo Emerson’s quip about the state of religion in mid-nineteenth-century America could very well have been applied to that of Orthodox Judaism in mid-twentieth-century America. In the 1950s, the future of American Orthodoxy looked so gloomy that the prominent sociologist Marshall Sklare predicted its imminent extinction. Sklare’s ominous forecast could not have proved more wrong.

If the historian Will Durant was correct in proposing that it is neither the meek nor the strong nor even the educated but rather the fertile who inherit the earth, then it is easy to understand why many Orthodox Jews are now feeling a growing sense of confidence, verging on triumphalism. Orthodox Jews have significantly higher birthrates than the general population. They have an average of 4.1 children per family, compared with 1.9 children per non-Orthodox families, according to a 2013 survey by Pew. (This figure is even higher among Haredi [or ultra-] Orthodox Jews.) ² Fewer Jews are leaving Orthodoxy than in years past. Staggeringly high rates of Orthodox Jews also marry others who share their identity, thus making the faith’s perpetuation to the next generation much likelier. Among non-Orthodox Jews, 72 percent of married Pew survey respondents reported having a non-Jewish spouse. For the Orthodox, that number was just 2 percent. It is no wonder that Orthodoxy is the only major American Jewish denomination that is growing.

Orthodox Jews are also beginning to attain positions of considerable power and influence in American life. In the past twenty years, Orthodox Jews have served as US attorney general and secretary of the treasury, and in the year 2000 there was an Orthodox Jewish Democratic vice-presidential candidate. The daughter and son-in-law of the forty-fifth president of the United States were Orthodox Jews, making Orthodoxy more prominent than it has ever been in America.

As American Orthodoxy continues to increase in size, status, and confidence, anyone interested in American religious life—and in American life in general—would be well-advised to become better acquainted with Orthodoxy: what it is, who the Orthodox are, where they come from, and what the future may hold for them. One of the best ways of doing so is by becoming acquainted with the intellectual and spiritual leaders of American Orthodoxy—those individuals whose teachings have shaped (and continue to shape) the minds and lives of hundreds of thousands of American Orthodox Jews.

Among these intellectual and spiritual leaders, none looms larger than Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, the spiritual and intellectual paragon of American modern Orthodoxy for over fifty years during the twentieth century. Jack Wertheimer has aptly called Soloveitchik the embodiment of the synthetic ideal of Torah U’madda—the modern Orthodox rabbinic leader who more than any other thought leader of his era personified the ideal of attaining both mastery of rabbinic texts as well as broad knowledge of and continuing engagement with Western philosophy.³ Even after his death in 1993, Soloveitchik has continued to exert an enormous influence upon the American modern Orthodox community, to such an extent that in certain locales his teachings are cited with the same reverence accorded to other classical Jewish sages such as Rabbi Akiva, Hillel, Rashi, and Moses Maimonides.

Like the Jewish sages of antiquity, Soloveitchik also raised up (in the parlance of the Mishnaic text Pirkei Avot, or Ethics of the Fathers) many disciples. And it is these disciples who have continued to perpetuate Soloveitchik’s legacy and who continue to spread his influence through teachings of their own. Some of these disciples have even become significant American Jewish thought leaders in their own right. Among Soloveitchik’s disciples who have garnered this primacy of place in American Orthodox life and thought, the most outstanding and influential have been Rabbi Irving Greenberg, Rabbi David Hartman, and Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. They have each founded and/or headed major institutions, won awards, written highly influential works of Jewish thought, and have had important roles in both Jewish and American civil life. Greenberg served on the United States Presidential Holocaust Museum Commission, whose work led to the creation of the United States National Holocaust Museum on the Washington National Mall. Hartman became a thought leader whose books and ideas were quoted by Thomas Friedman in New York Times columns. And Sacks, in addition to being quoted with some frequency by David Brooks in his New York Times columns, created the siddur (prayerbook) that is rapidly becoming the standard siddur in American modern Orthodox synagogues. And finally, although Sacks is English, he has arguably been even more influential within the American Orthodox community than Greenberg and Hartman have been. And although Sacks, unlike Greenberg and Hartman, did not study directly with Soloveitchik, Soloveitchik, as Sacks himself has written—and as this book discusses in some depth—was one of the most influential rabbinic leaders Sacks ever encountered. He was one of the two American rabbis, as Sacks has written, who were instrumental in convincing Sacks to enter the rabbinate.

Greenberg, Hartman, and Sacks are all disciples of Soloveitchik, each in their own unique ways. Hartman was the closest to having had a traditional student-teacher relationship with Soloveitchik, having been in Soloveitchik’s Talmud lectures at Yeshiva College; he was also ordained by Soloveitchik. Greenberg did not come into Soloveitchik’s orbit until after he had graduated college and had received rabbinic ordination. Almost as soon as Greenberg did meet Soloveitchik, though—which happened for the first time when Greenberg was living in Boston while in graduate school—he quickly became enamored of Soloveitchik’s philosophical approach to Jewish law and began attending his lectures whenever he could. He was a particular devotee of Soloveitchik’s Saturday night lectures on the weekly Torah portion and Jewish thought, which he attended regularly between 1953–56 and 1957–58. During the 1970s and into the 1980s, Greenberg consulted frequently with Soloveitchik on many matters of Jewish thought and Jewish law. And while Sacks never had the opportunity to study with Soloveitchik directly the way that Hartman and Greenberg did, he became just as (if not arguably more so) enraptured by the thought of this American Talmudic and philosophical master after his own encounter with Soloveitchik. Sacks devoted the majority of his early work in academic Jewish thought to studying Soloveitchik’s philosophy, subsequently becoming—as this book will discuss at length—a lifelong student of the Rav’s who, although far from Soloveitchik geographically, always held Soloveitchik’s teachings close to his heart and even closer to his mind. Each of these three thinkers, as this book will discuss, claimed (at times explicitly, but more often implicitly) to be heirs to the philosophical (although not Talmudic and halakhic) legacy of Soloveitchik.⁴ And these three disciples of Soloveitchik may also be the most influential religious thought leaders for the American modern Orthodox community today.

But what exactly are their ideas? And in what ways are they or are they not perpetuating the teachings of Soloveitchik? This book sets out to explain, lucidly and comprehensively, the thought of Greenberg, Hartman, and Sacks in relationship to one another and in relationship to Soloveitchik. Other scholars have explored the thought of each of these thinkers individually. No single study, however, has yet explored and explained their thought as part of the greater stream of American Orthodox thought; no work of scholarship has yet studied the thought of Jonathan Sacks (arguably the single most important thinker and religious leader for contemporary American modern Orthodox Jews); no scholarly work has yet put these thought leaders in conversation with one another; and no scholarly work has yet studied their thought in relation to the teachings of Soloveitchik. This book sets out to do all this, in addition to considering what role Soloveitchik has had in shaping these thinkers’ approaches to some of the central theological issues of our time, including interfaith dialogue and post-Holocaust theology.

Along the way, key questions in modern Jewish thought and modern Jewish intellectual history will be interrogated and answered: why did Greenberg, Hartman, and Sacks all ostensibly break with Soloveitchik on the subject of interfaith dialogue, interreligious theology, and Jewish-Christian relations? To what extent can they continue to claim the mantle of Soloveitchik if they differ so greatly from him on such consequential theological issues? And with their differing interpretations of the divine-human covenant and the role of God in history, can they genuinely be seen as children of Soloveitchik in comparison to Soloveitchik’s seemingly more faithful disciples who did not depart from him on any significant theological or halakhic (Jewish legal) issues? Additionally, what are the differences between Greenberg, Hartman, and Sacks? Are Sacks’s criticisms of Greenberg fair? How has Greenberg responded to those critiques? Are Hartman and Greenberg really as close, philosophically and theologically, as their thought would suggest? And in what ways are the theological responses to the Holocaust offered by Greenberg, Hartman, and Sacks continuations or deviations from Soloveitchik’s response to the Holocaust? This book endeavors to address all of these issues and more, telling the heretofore untold religious intellectual history story of how one major American Jewish thought leader came to influence three others—as well as how they departed from their teacher in certain areas while continuing to advance his legacy in others.

The central thesis of this book is that Greenberg, Hartman, and Sacks have carried forth Soloveitchik’s legacy in its entirety while simultaneously transforming it. Through their creative transformations and adaptations of their teacher’s thought, they have been able to convey Soloveitchik’s vision to the next generation and in this way have been even more faithful to their master than had they been mere passive recipients of his thought. Indeed, the latter approach would have been the antithesis of what Soloveitchik desired in a disciple.

This is a work on (and, occasionally, of) Jewish and religious thought, not history. It therefore focuses intensely on matters of thought and theology and does not cover certain topics that one may expect to find in works of history and historical scholarship (though it does—primarily here in this introduction, chapter 1, and elsewhere as necessary—provide historical context for their thought and theologies). In terms of the topics it does cover, it regrettably is not able to address every area of Jewish thought and Jewish life that Greenberg, Hartman, and Sacks have written on, such as holiness, metaphysics, feminism, and the intersection of theology and social justice; several additional volumes would be required for such an undertaking. The book instead explores the areas in Jewish thought and theology—such as their approaches to halakhah (Jewish law), creativity, the primacy of life, Jewish-Christian dialogue, and post-Holocaust theology—in which they have been most significantly influenced by (or formed theologies and philosophies in reaction and/or response to) Soloveitchik.

This book rests on the conviction that theology—and Jewish theology specifically—is a legitimate and unique field of religious studies. It draws upon methodologies from history, philosophy, psychology, and comparative literary analysis in its elucidation of theological concepts and in its explorations of the dynamics of theological influence. This is a work concerned first and foremost with identifying and clarifying the conceptions of the thinkers examined herein on important subjects related to covenant, creativity, halakhah, the human being, other religions, and the proper response to suffering and tragedy; comparing and contrasting their views on these subjects with those of one another, with those of their teacher, and, when scope permits, with those put forward by other significant thinkers of their era and past eras in Jewish theology; and then, when appropriate, critiquing them theologically. It asks whether the approaches they propounded on central Jewish issues are credible from the standpoint of Jewish theology—which involves examining these ideas in relation to biblical and rabbinic precedents as well as through the prism of what history may be able to teach us about the concepts in question—or whether some of their views are far more problematic than these thinkers have been willing to admit.

With that in mind, it should be noted that the book is designed to be accessible to both lay readers as well as readers and scholars of modern Jewish theology. Readers will become intimately familiar with the thought of these theologians and grasp the ways in which they draw upon the thought of their teacher Soloveitchik in crafting unique and original theologies of their own—theologies that are indeed quite open to legitimate theological critique. Scholars engaged in the study of Jewish thought and lay readers interested in learning more about Sacks, Hartman, and Greenberg will have their knowledge about these thinkers and their theologies significantly enhanced. They will learn about their key areas of disagreement with Soloveitchik, as well as their key disagreements with one another—including Greenberg’s responses to Sacks’s critiques of some of his and his wife Blu Greenberg’s approaches to Jewish law and thought. Readers will also learn about the central ways in which Greenberg’s narrative theology of Judaism is drawn from and influenced by his teacher Soloveitchik’s philosophy of Judaism; how Greenberg’s and Hartman’s approaches to Jewish law are both influenced by (and are reactions to) their perceptions of Soloveitchik’s approach to Jewish law; and how Sacks’s interreligious theology—expressed most famously (and then soon altered in a subsequent edition) in his Dignity of Difference—was not merely a one-time expression of a somewhat controversial theological claim but rather a career-long stance he consistently maintained. And Christian scholars committed to interreligious dialogue and who engage in interfaith theology will learn about how Greenberg, Hartman, and Sacks conceptualize Christianity and interfaith theology—critical components to be cognizant of for Christian scholars and theologians who wish to continue the project of Jewish-Christian dialogue begun by these thinkers during the previous generation.

This book raises the issue of legitimacy—what can be considered a legitimate Jewish theology, and which theologians can be considered legitimate disciples of a prior, widely esteemed Jewish theologian? This book stakes the claim that Greenberg, Hartman, and Sacks can all be considered legitimate disciples of Joseph B. Soloveitchik. What is at stake here is significant, for in large sectors of Orthodoxy, these thinkers, for various reasons—especially Greenberg and Hartman—are not considered to be so (on account of their alleged radi-calness, an issue this book delves into in some depth). This is an important question, because in Jewish theology the importance of discipleship, and the legitimacy thereof, is almost (if not just as much of) a critical issue as it is in Jewish law. The strength and enduring value of a theologian’s thought rests on the strength and value of his or her ideas. The ideas of Greenberg, Hartman, and Sacks are undoubtedly very appealing to many contemporary Jews. But just because their ideas are appealing to some does not ipso facto render their thought legitimate Orthodox theology. In order for their theologies to be considered legitimate, it must be demonstrated that their thought is grounded firmly in Orthodox theological precedent. And in order for disciples to be considered legitimate heirs of a master, it is necessary to show the extent to which their thought is a continuation of, rather than a departure from, the thought of their teacher. This book, by demonstrating how deeply rooted the thought of Greenberg, Hartman, and Sacks is in the thought of Soloveitchik—even in their instances of ostensible departure from him—offers a resolution to the question of the legitimacy of Greenberg, Hartman, and Sacks’s status as rightful theological and philosophical heirs of Rabbi Soloveitchik.

One of the primary ways in which this book seeks to substantiate the veracity of this claim is through its discussion of the question of influence. The book acknowledges, and devotes a considerable amount of attention to, the influence of other thinkers on Greenberg, Hartman, and Sacks. It discusses the influence of Greenberg’s father (a rabbi and Talmudic scholar in his own right) upon him, the influence of Yeshayahu Leibowitz and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel on Hartman, and the influence of Rabbis Menachem Mendel Schneerson and Nachum Rabinovitch on Jonathan Sacks. Nonetheless, it makes the case for the predominance of Soloveitchik’s influence in the areas of philosophy and theology on all three. It does so by analyzing Soloveitchik’s influence upon them from both a quantitative and qualitative perspective—through observing the sheer number of references to Soloveitchik in their writings, studying how these references function in their work, and examining how they are being used to support their theological propositions. The qualitative analysis is particularly important, for it demonstrates that when these thinkers seek to introduce new and arguably radical ideas into Jewish theological discourse, they do so very frequently by drawing upon the ideas of their teacher Soloveitchik as theological precedents. The book, however, shows that these references are not just superficial window-dressing designed to make more radical and more heterodox ideas appear more Orthodox than they actually are. They are in fact substantively crucial aspects of Greenberg, Hartman, and Sacks’s own thought. Sacks’s many references to Soloveitchik’s valorization of the virtue of creativity, for instance, is not mere intellectual ornamentation; it is a crucial component of Sacks’s thesis of Jewish ethics. And neither are Greenberg’s references to Soloveitchik’s teachings regarding the halakhic concept of sh’liḥut (agency) mere references to Soloveitchik for the sake of name-checking an authoritative Orthodox thinker and nothing more; an understanding of Soloveitchik’s conceptualization of sh’liḥut was instrumental to Greenberg’s conceptualization of the anthropo-theological principle of tzelem Elokim (imago Dei, or the belief that human beings are in the image of God)—the central Jewish theological concept (in addition to u’vaḥarta ba’ḥayim [choose life]) undergirding Greenberg’s entire system of Jewish theology and Jewish ethics. The cumulative number—and, even more significantly, the import of, and the manner in which they use—these citations thus serve to illustrate Soloveitchik’s profound and pervasive influence on these thinkers, which then further strengthens the argument for their status as Soloveitchik’s legitimate theological heirs.

Chapter-by-Chapter Overview

Chapter 1 introduces Greenberg, Hartman, and Sacks and clarifies how Sacks, although never having studied under Soloveitchik directly, can nonetheless be considered a veritable student and disciple of Soloveitchik. The chapter also investigates some of the debates and disagreements that Greenberg, Hartman, and Sacks have had with one another and discusses several key differences the three have had with Soloveitchik himself.

Chapter 2 delves directly into the thought of Greenberg, Hartman, and Sacks, and examines the ways in which their approaches to certain central issues in Jewish thought—namely, the anthropo-theological doctrine of tzelem Elokim; the teleology of halakhah; dialectical analysis and dualistic structures of thought; the adaptability of Torah to modern culture; the primacy of life; and the centrality of creativity—have been influenced, to varying degrees, by the thought and writings of Soloveitchik.

Chapter 3 studies the positions of Greenberg, Hartman, and Sacks on interfaith dialogue and their theologies of interreligious pluralism. After having demonstrated the breadth and depth of Soloveitchik’s influence upon all three thinkers, the quandary of how and why they departed from Soloveitchik in the matter of interfaith dialogue becomes all the more perplexing. This chapter addresses this dilemma and argues—in accordance with the thesis of this book—that although Greenberg, Hartman, and Sacks did indeed break with Soloveitchik in the matter of interfaith dialogue, their departures from him on this matter should be viewed as a consequence of his influence upon them and as an extension of Soloveitchik’s own engagement with Christian thinkers and Protestant theologians.

Chapter 4 explores the post-Holocaust theology of Greenberg, Hartman, and Sacks. In addition to investigating the disagreement between Greenberg and Sacks concerning post-Holocaust theology and the nature of the covenant, the chapter demonstrates how Sacks’s theological response to the Holocaust is patterned after Soloveitchik’s and argues that Greenberg’s response to the Holocaust should be viewed as a development of theological trends evident in Soloveitchik’s thought.

The concluding chapter provides a closing summary statement of the book and proposes a path forward for Jewish theology in the twenty-first century and beyond. Specifically, the chapter argues for the continuing necessity of Jewish theology in the Diaspora (or, more accurately—according to the terminology of the chapter—for diasporic Jewish theology) even in the age of Zionism and even after the return of the people of Israel to the land of Israel.

Soloveitchik came of age during the post–World War I era and developed as a thinker and theologian after World War II. Greenberg, Hartman, and Sacks came of age after World War II and developed as thinkers and theologians after the Vietnam War. This was a period in American history in which a greater sense of doubt in—and a greater openness to questioning of—traditional sources of authority began to come into much greater vogue. After the United States government was shown to have taken the country into a disastrous, unnecessary war under false pretenses—and after the president of the United States resigned from office in the wake of what was then the greatest political scandal in the country’s history—a great many past certitudes began to be thrown into significant doubt. In many ways, the thought of Greenberg, Hartman, and Sacks—and the thought of Greenberg and Hartman in particular—are part of the story of this era in American history. Their greater willingness to question former certainties of Orthodox thought and praxis based (especially in Hartman’s case) on nothing more than the assuredness of the rightness of their own intuitions can be seen as the theological corollaries to the political movement toward greater questioning (and, occasionally, outright rebellion) that characterized this era of American history.

Hartman, Greenberg, and Sacks continued writing and teaching through the 2010s. Greenberg continues to write and teach to this present day. But the era in which they developed as thinkers and as theologians is no longer ours. The time during which they came to maturity was still largely an era that valorized community and was, even with the cultural upheavals of the sixties, a far less atomized world than the one in which we live today. There were only three television networks; most Americans watched the same movies and television programs and listened to the same music hand-selected for them on a limited number of FM radio stations; and the vast majority of Americans still belonged to churches or synagogues. In contrast, today we live in an era of vast fragmentation in American life and culture—which is spread across an uncountable number of cable and satellite television and radio channels, podcasts, YouTube shows, and streaming platforms—and, for the first time in American history, a minority of Americans belong to a house of worship.

Yet, despite the many differences between their age and ours, their thought is still highly compelling—if not even more compelling—today. One of the defining features of our era is the increasing awareness of, and sensitivity to, the struggles of historically marginalized peoples and of people of color for full, genuine equality under the law and for full recognition within American culture more broadly—an awareness both embodied and catalyzed by the Black Lives Matter movement. Greenberg’s, Hartman’s, and Sacks’s theologies of tzelem Elokim and the divinity of diversity offer persuasive ethical and theological grounding for the all-important social, political, and legal struggle for equality, tolerance, and fairness for all individuals. Their elevation of the principle of tzelem Elokim—that every human being is a unique, equal, and infinitely valuable individual—to the pinnacle of Jewish values, and their insistence that diversity is not just incidental but a divine desideratum—resonates significantly with today’s American and global movement toward a greater appreciation of diversity and of the inherent dignity of each and every single human being. These thinkers’ conceptualizations of tzelem Elokim—one of the most important religious ideas in the theological arsenal we have in the struggle for equal rights for all human beings—will be a key area examined in this volume.

The other distinguishing feature of our era is, and will likely continue to be for some time, the COVID-19 pandemic. Although a majority of Americans have now been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, the effects of the pandemic are likely to become defining elements of this time in history, particularly for those who have come of age during these years. One of the core aspects of much of the global response to the pandemic has been the prioritization of life above all else. Schools, restaurants, movie theaters, and even houses of worship were all ordered to close down in order to guard