The Rav on Tefillah - new book

 

An Anthology of Teachings by Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik on Jewish Prayer

The Levovitz Edition

Edited and annotated by Rabbi Dr. Jay Goldmintz

Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik is known as “the Rav” because he was the teacher par excellence of his generation, but his contributions to our understanding and practice of Tefillah (Jewish prayer) are particularly noteworthy. The Rav approached Tefillah with great depth and intellectual rigor, exploring its philosophical and existential dimensions. His teachings have had a profound impact on the Jewish community; however, they are not always readily accessible. The vocabulary of the Rav’s philosophical writings sometimes acts as a barrier for the uninitiated, while many of the Rav’s shiurim are available only in Hebrew. In addition, these teachings are dispersed in a wide variety of publications as well as unpublished lecture notes, often making them difficult to obtain and locate.

To address these issues, veteran educator Rabbi Dr. Jay Goldmintz, a pioneer in the teaching of Jewish prayer, has compiled The Rav on Tefillah. Rabbi Goldmintz has collated teachings of the Rav which focus both on the macro and micro features of prayer, organizing them according to the sequence of the Siddur but without the space constraints of a Siddur commentary. Rabbi Goldmintz prefaces the Rav’s words with brief introductions which offer relevant context and background; notes contain sources, additional references, and alternative interpretations. In his Overview, Rabbi Goldmintz presents the central themes to which the Rav returns throughout in his approach to Tefillah. Rabbi Goldmintz’s work will help readers understand both the particulars of prayer and its overall structure so to achieve the goal of prayer, worship of the heart.

https://oupress.org/product/rav-tefillah/

I have it for one day and found great morsels, for example, the Torah has no specific mitzvah to have knowledge in Torah, but rather to teach others who need assistance and for this one requires knowledge. 

Rav Soloveitchik on Prayer

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Rabbi Aaron Goldscheider

Kevarim of the Rav and Rebbetzin

The kevarim of the Rav and Rebbetzin are to be found at Baker Street Jewish Cemeteries in West Roxbury (Boston), Massachusetts

Kohanim can see the tombstones from the road, the general area is shown in the square in the map below. It's around 100 meters East from this building, which is circled in the map below. If you stand at the entrance of this parking lot, where you can park, and are facing the cemetery, walk 100 meters, approx. to the left. If you are going to enter the cemetery, you do it here by this building and go left around 100 meters. 

I don't remember exactly because it's been 20 years, but I believe you can view the tombstones from here:

Forty Years Later: The Rav’s Opening Shiur at the Stern College for Women Beit Midrash - thelehrhaus

https://nesherhagadol.blogspot.com/2020/10/43-years-later-ravs-opening-shiur-at.html


Forty Years Later: The Rav’s Opening Shiur at the Stern College for Women Beit Midrash

By Saul Berman
- October 9, 2017 All credit goes to him and to thelehrhaus.com

In late 1976, Dr. Haym Soloveitchik and I met to discuss Jewish Studies at Stern College for Women. Dr. Soloveitchik told me that he never understood why Talmud was not being more systematically taught at Stern College. He had been raised with the impression that it was natural for women to study Talmud. As a child, Dr. Soloveitchik had studied with his father, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, together with his older sisters, Atarah and Tovah. When he began, at the age of ten, studying Talmud with the Rav, Dr. Soloveitchik joined as a junior participant in their class. The same culture was manifest at Maimonides School in Boston, which his father and mother, Dr. Tonya Soloveitchik, had founded, and where boys and girls studied Talmud in the same classes.

By this time, many of Stern’s Jewish Studies courses made use of Mishnah, Talmud, and its commentaries. The undergraduate women used these texts, engaging with them as primary sources to study Jewish Law, Jewish History, and Biblical Exegesis. Yet, Stern College did not make room in the schedule for its students to acquire the skills to develop competence in independent text study. This is how the movement to introduce intensive Talmud study at Stern College was born.

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Biography of Tonya Soloveitchik by Tovah Lichtenstein

 https://www.etzion.org.il/sites/default/files/2023-04/Lichtenstein0095-0112.pdf

My father was known to his talmidim as the Rav. My mother was known as Mrs. Soloveitchik. Many times, when my father was invited to deliver a lecture, he would say, “I will talk to Mrs. Soloveitchik.” We children knew that was his way of saying no. He never spoke to her about the invitation nor did he speak. Very few of my father’s talmidim knew my mother. My father commuted to the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS), at Yeshiva University in New York, from our home in Boston and she seldom travelled with him. It was only after the children had grown up and gone their own way that my mother began accompanying my father to New York. Despite her seeming anonymity, my mother was well known in Boston where she was the Chair of the School Committee of the Maimonides Educational Institute (later called Maimonides School), which had been founded by my father in 1937. The School Committee made curricular and policy decisions and was involved in the everyday functioning of the school at the micro level. The school committee ran the school, and Mrs. Soloveitchik was the driving force of the committee.

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