RAV SOLOVEITCHIK ON THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL Rabbi Reuven Ziegler

The Two Covenants and the State of Israel In 1935, on his only trip to Eretz Yisrael, Rav Soloveitchik submitted his candidacy for the chief rabbinate of Tel Aviv as the representative of Agudath Israel, a non-Zionist, perhaps even anti-Zionist, political-religious organization. By 1944, he was chairman of the Central Committee of the Religious Zionists of America. He testifies that his move to Mizrachi was not an easy one, as it entailed a break with his family’s position and rejection by his rabbinic peers: I was not born into a Zionist household. My parents’ ancestors, my father’s house, my teachers and colleagues were far from the Mizrachi religious Zionists … My links with the Mizrachi grew gradually; I had my doubts about the validity of the Mizrachi approach… I built an altar upon which I sacrificed sleepless nights, doubts and reservations. Regardless, the years of the Hitlerian Holocaust, the establishment of the State of Israel, and the accomplishments of the Mizrachi in the land of Israel, convinced me of the correctness of our movement’s path. The altar still stands today, with smoke rising from the sacrifice upon it … Jews like me … are required to sacrifice on this altar their peace of mind as well as their social relationships and friendships. (Five Addresses, 34, 36)¹ A variety of factors—some related to fate and some to destiny— contributed to the Rav’s support for Mizrachi and to his personal commitment to the State of Israel.

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Berel Wein on the Rav

“Certainly amongst the most influent leaders of post-war American Jewry was Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik (1903–1993). He combined the posts of communal rabbi in Boston with that of Rosh Yeshiva of Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary of Yeshiva University. However, these two posts, important as they were, are not truly reflective of his larger role in American Jewry. He was the guide and Halachic authority for a significant segment of American Jews who classified themselves as “modern” Orthodox. His great Talmudic brilliance coupled with his masterful oratory and gifted educational skills helped raise thousands of rabbis and laymen to the level of defenders of tradition and pioneers of Jewish accomplishment. A recognized philosopher and secular scholar, his role nevertheless was essentially to be the conduit for the great tradition of Torah of his family and Eastern Europe to a modern world. He exemplified the tension inherent between the old Europe and the new America and the swirling controversies, impossible paradoxes and enormous possibilities that this tension created. His influence helped hold the line of demarcation between Orthodoxy and other interpretations of American Jewish life, was one of the founders of the day school and yeshiva movements in the United States in the 1930s and 1940s and described a vision of the modern world and the new Jewish state that somehow reconciled itself with the ancient Jewish dreams of tradition and observance.” 

|Rabbi Berel Wein, Triumph of Survival, p. 438.

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The Rav's Enduring Legacy