#whatireadovershabbat Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Kol Dodi Dofek, translated by David Z. Gordon (1956, pub. 1961; trans. 2006)
On the eve of the 1956 Suez War, Rabbi Soloveitchik wrote the key text of non-messianic religious Zionism. This polemic, first delivered in Yiddish in Yeshiva University's Lamport Auditorium, insisted that God was knocking at the door, trying to rouse us to a miracle: the creation of the State of Israel.
But that is only the historical side of the argument. At its heart Kol Dodi Dofek is a work, if you will, of historical theology. It is a theology, moreover, that I know well, even intimately.
I received my formative education at a Modern Orthodox day school in the last years when Rav Soloveitchik’s influence was dominant. (In the decade and a half since I graduated, the Haredi model took over, as has happened at similar institutions.) While the thought of "The Rav," as he is called, was not a formal part of the curriculum, we prided ourselves on reading, on our own time, The Lonely Man of Faith (1965), his philosophical explication of the two creation stories in Genesis. Those who came from observant families naturally aspired to attend Yeshiva University (YU), where, at the rabbinical school, he ordained some 2,500 rabbis over his lifetime. Many desired to attend Gush, Yeshivat Har Etzion, where the Rav's son-in-law, Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein, eventually became rosh yeshiva.
The Rav was synonymous with Modern Orthodoxy, and with the notion of Torah u-Madda (Torah and knowledge), whereby an observant Jew could interface with the secular world, borrowing what was best rather than shunning it. It's true that as a Midwestern Jew I missed what was obvious to my East Coast counterparts: Modern Orthodox Judaism was, on the whole, far less intellectually adventurous than its originator and his immediate disciples. It wasn't uncommon for a kid from St. Louis or Cleveland to realize at YU—or if he was lucky, during gap year in Israel—that his classmates weren't reading Kant or Baudelaire. They didn't even read the Rav.
There is one matter, however, besides observance, on which there is no disagreement, no matter where you're from: Modern Orthodox Jews are Zionist. In whatever respect some communities lean Haredi, whether in dress or attitude, they remain ardent supporters of the State of Israel. Their Zionism finds theological support in the argument Rabbi Soloveitchik advances in Kol Dodi Dofek, though only support; most Modern Orthodox Jews feel Zionist in their kishkes.
Rav Soloveitchik’s core theological claim is that suffering—terrible, inevitable suffering—is meaningless, until (or unless) you wrest something from it. What makes this a historical theology is that suffering applies at a national level. Rabbi Soloveitchik argued that the State of Israel is what had to be wrested from the Holocaust. In the unfolding events after 1945, God rehearsed His role as the Beloved of the Song of Songs, pounding at the door to wake us to take part in the miracle of the rebirth of Jewish sovereignty. A miracle, Rabbi Soloveitchik says, must be seized, or else it will remain a mere historical event.
In Israel Alone, Bernard-Henri Lévy describes October 7 as an Event, an unprecedented occurrence, an eruption of radical evil. Let's suffice to call it an episode of suffering. It is necessary, then, to wrest something from it. I don't mean: find the silver lining. You can't tame suffering or reason about it. You can't attribute it to a higher plan. You can't answer why.
As Rabbi Jacob J. Schacter said to me and some others discussing Kol Dodi Dofek this morning, you can only say what. What will I do now? What must I do? What can't I let be swallowed in the nightmare of history? What indeed. How you act in defiance of suffering is the manifestation of God in history, the refusal of matter to remain trapped and speechless.
Of course words themselves have a taming effect. Kol Dodi Dofek, like all Rabbi Soloveitchik's works, is a prolegomenon to a life lived in Torah. Mitzvot, not theological arguments, are the materiel for the battle against mute suffering.
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