One of my most memorable teachers in high school used to explain why he wore white socks by recalling a story about his beloved mentor, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. As his wife's health worsened and her eyesight dimmed, Rabbi Soloveitchik decided that in order to ease her role in the laundry room, he would henceforth only wear white socks. The story might have ended there, except that Rabbi Soloveitchik was no ordinary kind-hearted husband. As the new biographical documentary The Lonely Man of Faith memorably says in introducing the rabbi, "he was simply a genius ... a religious mind unsurpassed in his time ... removed from us regular mortals." Who was this genius, this sensitive husband who for over 40 years was arguably the preeminent scholar, teacher and leader of American Jewry? The Lonely Man of Faith seeks to answer these questions and more by portraying the life and legacy of one of the most dynamic and complicated religious leaders of the 20th century.
Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik -- or the "Rav" as he is affectionately known-lived over half his life in America. It was in this country that he rose to prominence, ordaining over 2,000 rabbis as the senior teacher at Yeshiva University's Theological Seminary, guiding the Jewish community as the leader of the Religious Zionist party and the Rabbinical Council of America, and forever altering the landscape of Jewish theology. Nevertheless, his success in synthesizing a religious worldview and engagement with modern society reflect his early years in Europe and his unique family background.
Soloveitchik's parents were both very important sources in their son's life. Descended on both sides from some of the most prominent rabbinical scholars of the past two centuries, his father, Rabbi Moshe Soloveitchik, devoted the latter part of his life to ensuring that his son would emerge as the scholarly leader of the next generation. His father served as his personal teacher until he left home at age 21 for university.
That Soloveitchik attended university at all was chiefly due to the influence of his mother, Pesia Soloveitchik. Her insistence that her son gain a strong secular education had critical importance for his future as the leader of the Modern Orthodox Jewish community. In great part due to his influence, Modern Orthodoxy has defined itself as welcoming engagement with modern secular society while maintaining traditional religious convictions and observance.
The film does a wonderful job at capturing this early phase of Soloveitchik's life, depicting the violence in pre-revolutionary Russia and Eastern Europe that continually forced his family to move west and finally leave for America in 1932. Before arriving in America, he completed his university studies with a doctorate in philosophy, an experience that left him strongly influenced by thinkers like Sren Kierkergaard and also married to a fellow university student, Tonya Lewitt.
It was upon arriving in America that Soloveitchik began his lifelong position as a leader of American Jewry. He was quickly named rabbi of the religious community in Boston, a city he would never permanently leave for the next 50 years. The film does an especially fine job of placing him and his wife within the politics of mid-20 century Jewish Boston. The young couple was committed to invigorating the assimilating community through education and traditional religious observance. Although their initiatives did not meet without opposition, the Soloveitchiks were ultimately very successful. The Jewish day school they founded to educate the Jewish community's youth, The Maimonides School, continues to flourish to this day.
Following the death of his father in 1941, Soloveitchik took his place as a senior teacher at Yeshiva University. It is from this position that he cemented his place as the preeminent spiritual force within Modern Orthodoxy. As a teacher, he was in his element, and from his new position he could directly engage the generations of young rabbinical students who passed through his classroom.
The rest of the film breaks the chronological story to focus on Soloveitchik's position vis-a-vis the State of Israel, the ultra-Orthodox, and most profoundly, himself and his immediate surroundings. His rocky reception in the ultra-Orthodox world due to his liberal views on the importance of women's Torah learning and intra-faith dialogue is depicted well. However the film fails to do full justice to Soloveitchik's complex relationship with the State of Israel. Soloveitchick emerged after the horrors of the Holocaust as a committed Zionist. However, while he wrote eloquently on the Jewish people's passion for the land, he not only declined the position of Chief Rabbi of Israel, but never even visited Israel during his many years in America.
If there is one theme stressed throughout the film, especially in its latter stages, it is Soloveitchik's profound sense of existential alienation, a loneliness that he most famously expressed in his landmark essay -- and the source of the film's title The Lonely Man of Faith. Ethan Isenberg, the director/producer, has explained that contrary to some who suggest that his loneliness was merely a philosophical alienation, his isolation was perhaps also emotional.
As the title suggests, the film argues that Rav Soloveitchik's sense of isolation amid his magnificent social and spiritual accomplishments is perhaps his major legacy. That very focus, however, robs the film of giving enough stress to his broader legacy within the Modern Orthodox and general Jewish and secular communities. In this absence the film betrays a sense of parochialism, a conclusion that is only validated by the dependence on the Soloveitchik's closest students as the scholarly commentators. Whatever it may lack, the film is nevertheless a valuable means of introducing the personality and dynamic genius of the Rav to a broader audience.
