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My Yeshiva College: 75 Years of Memories Edited by Menachem Butler and Zev NagelYashar Books New York, 2006 387 pages

Reviewed by Herbert Schlager

Reading My Yeshiva College: 75Years of Memories, a collection ofsixty-four reminiscences and

glimpses of Yeshiva College life, asrecalled by former students and teach-ers, flooded me with memories of myundergraduate years at Yeshiva Collegeand of the strong feelings the school hasalways engendered. While Yeshiva TorahVodaath never had to explain the prove-nance and significance of its institution-al name, Yeshiva College, with its TorahUmadda insignia, never managed to getsuch a break.

The debate about the nature andpurpose of Yeshiva College can be fierce.For some, Yeshiva College’s religious andsecular studies are not inherently contra-dictory but actually complement,enhance and enrich each other. After all,

the purpose of both is the disinterestedsearch for Truth. However, for others,such a synthesis or symbiosis is anathe-ma, pure heresy, proof positive that theschool motto is really “Torah Madua?”and that the originators of the school’sslogan purposely shrouded their inten-tion in an alchemic formulation becausethey couldn’t decide which of the twoorientations should follow the other.

As a budding yeshivah bochurgrowing up in the Williamsburg sectionof Brooklyn, I was frequently admon-ished by my rebbeim to forgo college.But if I were “lo aleinu,” unable to resistthe gravitational pull towards the secu-lar, I was told to, at the very least, stayclear of Yeshiva College, which claimedto be Torah-true through and through,but which was, at best, a dangerous arti-fice, a Potemkin shtetl, a patchwork ofshatnez, and, at worst, a “makomtumah,” absolutely “chazir treif.” Thesymbolism employed was that of theparah adumah, the red heifer, which,while purifying the defiled, also defiledthe pure. If you arrived at the institu-tion non-frum and ignorant of Jewishlaw, Yeshiva College probably could dono real harm and could, in fact, dosome good. But if you entered frum,you would become hopelessly lost.Better, I was told, to attend a goyishechurch school—at least there I wouldexperience the difference between thesacred and the profane, and not getsucked in by pseudo-frum spin doctors.

Decades later, as My YeshivaCollege amply documents in its remark-able vignettes, Torah flourishes at theCollege, and the Yeshivish world recog-nizes, albeit grudgingly, the profoundand incalculable contribution of YeshivaCollege to Torah life in America. Theopposition has mellowed and is moreappreciative; nobody moved thehalachic goal posts, the strident havebecome less shrill, less judgmental, more

patient and currently seek commonground—and it all happened rightbefore our very own eyes. What YeshivaCollege taught the Torah world is thatthere are parallel ways to reach one’sdestination, to achieve one’s goals, tospread the Torah’s light to others and toserve the Lord of the Universe.

Intriguingly, there has always beenthis debate among Yeshiva Collegealumni about the nature of their ownacademic, professional and personal suc-cess. Did they do it on their own? DidYeshiva College make it all—or half—possible, or did the graduates succeed inspite of the school, because, by force ofcircumstances and necessity, it enabledthem to acquire and develop requisiteskills? While My Yeshiva College doesn’texactly answer these questions, it doesoffer insights on the positive nature ofthe Yeshiva College experience and, on amore general level, how Yeshiva College,which began as a tiny beit midrash/rab-binical school, managed in so short aperiod of time to assume a position ofacademic prominence, reach the bigleagues and evolve into a major institu-tion of higher education and the flag-ship of Modern Orthodoxy. A minormiracle, at the very least! A special prov-idence, indeed!

The book, which originallyappeared in the form of individualessays published in the Yeshiva Collegestudent newspaper, The Commentator, isstructured sequentially, highlightingmoments in the reigns of the first threepresidents of Yeshiva College—RabbiDr. Bernard Revel, Rabbi Dr. SamuelBelkin and Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm.As a totality, these essays illustrate thechallenges the college faced and cele-brate its myriad accomplishments. Eachof the sketches or vignettes is a story initself and attempts in some existentialway to define the Yeshiva College expe-rience, the school’s mission and its

Books

Dr. Schlager is professor of English at EssexCounty College and adjunct professor ofEnglish at Lander College, Touro College andYeshiva College.

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impact on each of the participant writ-ers and on the Jewish community atlarge. Rather than serve as a history ofthe college per se, My Yeshiva College is awalk down memory lane, a brightmosaic that illuminates the way we wereand the way we fare now as a result.Specifically, the editors, MenachemButler and Zev Nagel, who are bothrecent graduates of Yeshiva College, askthe contributors, “What is YeshivaCollege?” much in the same way theGemara in Masechet Shabbat (21b) iron-ically asks, “What is Chanukah?”

While the Talmud clearlydescribes and defines Chanukah, in thecase of Yeshiva College, the answers arepartial, wide-ranging and sometimeseye-glazing. What clearly emerges fromthe vignettes is that Yeshiva Collegemeans different things to different peo-ple. As Rabbi Gil Student, founder ofYashar Books and the publisher of MyYeshiva College, asserts in his essay on“The Ongoing Conundrum of YeshivaCollege,” the school itself has, “fromits very inception until today, engagedin its own struggle with self definition.What is Yeshiva College? Is it a collegefor yeshivah students? A yeshivah forcollege students? A yeshivah-collegehybrid and, if so, which of a variety oftypes?” In practical terms, these ques-tions of self-definition are best under-stood in the context of the religiouschallenges we face as Orthodox Jewswho confront and interact with themodern world on a daily basis. In hisanalysis of Yeshiva College, Rabbi Dr.Eugene Korn (YC ’68), currently direc-tor of Jewish affairs at the AmericanJewish Congress and editor of TheEdah Journal, writes that although thegeneral culture has been significantlytransformed from what it was in theturbulent sixties—a time of agony andecstasy for both Americans in generaland Jews in particular—the samequestions remain:

“How do we crucially accept highculture and be true to the halakhic andmeta-halakhic values of our mesorah?What is the proper dialectic of intellectualrigor and moral sensitivity? How can we

retain our Jewish identity, yet not becomejust a curious and isolated sect? How canwe relate to klal Yisroel in a real, notmerely rhetorical, way? And, finally, whatdo we have to contribute to God’s world,the future and to all humanity whom Hecreated be-tzelem Elokim?”

These questions, raised in oneform or another throughout the book,illustrate the personal journey many facein pursuit of the elusive Torah Umaddasynthesis. Because the book encompass-es seventy-five years of reminiscences, itis difficult to do justice to the wealth ofinformation it offers and the insights itprovides. There are portraits of theEuropean gedolim who were invited tojoin the faculty by Rabbi Dr. Revel andRabbi Dr. Belkin. Anyone as fortunateas I was to have some of these gedolimas rebbeim can attest to current YeshivaPresident Richard Joel’s depiction ofthese giants as “men of penetratingintellect and profound integrity.”Included in their numbers and in theportraits and snapshots are home-grownAmerican Talmudic scholars and pio-neers of American Orthodoxy.

Unfortunately, however, becauseMy Yeshiva College is a project of theBoard of Directors of Yeshiva College,we get only a partial, sanitized andselective rendering of the YeshivaCollege experience. Much of the excite-ment, vibrancy, richness and improvisa-tional nature of Yeshiva College life isnot narrated. So many personal jour-neys through the labyrinth of YeshivaCollege that would be of immenseinterest to the reading public are neverdelineated. We never seem to get off themain road, the official highway codedwith the standard markers. Perhapsexploring some uncharted trails andmeandering paths would kick up toomuch dust. Irrespective of whether thepool of essays was purposely filtered, theeffect is that a good deal of what we allexperienced at Yeshiva College has notbeen recorded in this volume, and theabsence thereof is deeply felt. In con-centrating editorial attention on gradu-ates who are currently part of the“Jewish Establishment,” we get an

“authorized version” of the YeshivaCollege experience. We would havebeen better served with a more inclusiverepresentation, with reminiscences bythe “Yeshiva shel Mattah” as well as thoseby the “Yeshiva shel Ma’alah.”

Notwithstanding the aforemen-tioned observations, there is much toprize in this volume of memories. Thesecond part of My Yeshiva Collegeexplores the extraordinary pioneeringfeats that took place during the Belkinyears and provides the most extensivetreatment of the Yeshiva institutionalexperience. It was during this periodthat Yeshiva College faced dauntingfinancial challenges and a near-deathexperience, but under Rabbi Dr.Lamm’s leadership it was able to fashionand re-structure itself into a full-fledgeduniversity with an endowment of atleast one billion dollars.

In order to survive, YeshivaCollege took steps that are only partiallyalluded to in some of the essays. Dr.Steven Bayme, national director of theContemporary Jewish Life Departmentof the American Jewish Committee,tells us that in reviewing those years,“one must avoid the temptations to donrose-colored glasses.” For example, “aca-demic departments generally lacked acritical mass of faculty and had to sub-sist with very few personnel.” Moreover,“the double program in itself posed seri-ous challenges to maintaining standardsof excellence and demands upon stu-dent productivity.”

On a personal note, I recall someof the college’s deficiencies becomingpublic information when I had theopportunity to examine Yeshiva Collegeas a case study at Harvard BusinessSchool. The study was in connectionwith the landmark US Supreme Courtruling that Yeshiva College facultymembers were not considered employ-ees covered by The National LaborRelations Act and could therefore notunionize. As part of the case study,Harvard sponsored a debate betweenthe Yeshiva College faculty union, repre-sented by Dr. Manfred Weidhorn,Yeshiva College professor of English,

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and the Yeshiva College lawyer. Duringthe debate, Dr. Weidhorn pointed outthat the Yeshiva College case study wasa “model of how not to run a universi-ty.” My classmates at Harvard—some ofwhom are now presidents, vice-presi-dents and deans at mid-sized and smalluniversities—could not believe the neg-ative findings that emerged from thecase study. They were astounded that,for instance, Yeshiva College’s day-to-day “management” activities were large-ly controlled by the vice-president ofbusiness affairs and that “academicaffairs was under the aegis of a host ofmedieval rabbis.” After classes, back atthe dorm, I tried to explain to my col-leagues that the case study was an out-sider’s view and that the authors of thestudy failed to see the larger picture,focusing instead on what they found tobe the highly Byzantine structure ofdecision making. What convinced myclassmates was certainly not my elo-quence, but Yeshiva College’s outstand-ing reputation. For many of them,Yeshiva College ranked along with thegiants of American higher education,and so the initial healthy regard theyhad had for the school as an academyopen to plural perspectives and intellec-tual diversity more than balanced thecase study’s negative findings.

In essence, My Yeshiva College isitself a case study of sorts, but it is also alove song to which my voice wholeheart-edly joins. Yeshiva College was a greatexperience. It strengthened our love forTorah and for Eretz Yisrael as well as ourappreciation for academic discourse andthe twin imperatives of mastering andperfecting the world. It provided us withthe opportunity to get to know fellowJewish students from all over the world,to build personal relationships and createlasting friendships. Tim Russert, Meetthe Press moderator, perhaps said it bestwhen he told graduates at this past year’sYeshiva College commencement: “Youhave something others would give mostanything for! You believe in some-thing—in your God, in your country, inyour family, in your school, in yourselfand your values.”

For all this, countless genera-tions—and on a personal note, my ownchildren, daughter-in-law and son-in-law—are grateful for the leadership andvision of Rabbi Dr. Revel, Rabbi Dr.Belkin and Rabbi Dr. Lamm and thedirection of Yeshiva College under cur-rent President Joel. As long as YeshivaCollege continues to invest in theJewish people, its future is assured.Yeshiva College need not look to copyLakewood, the Mir or Telshe—we areall satellites circling our sun, the Torah,and as long as we are true to and consis-tent in our revolutions and perfect inour orbit, our efforts will be crownedwith success.

And so to the editors of MyYeshiva College, we say, à la Bob Hope,thanks for seventy-five years of memo-ries, for the many times we feasted andthe many times we fasted and for recall-ing the excitement, the experience andthe message. �JA

Machzor Mesoras HaRav on RoshHashanah and Yom KippurEdited by Dr. Arnold LustigerThe Kasirer EditionK’hal Publishing in conjunction withthe Orthodox UnionNew York, 2006/2007

Reviewed by Gil Student

Iwas born in a year that provided aunique opportunity that those a fewyears older and younger than I

missed. People from my general agegroup never had the opportunity of see-ing or studying under Rabbi Joseph B.Soloveitchik (the Rav), but we did learnunder those who were his direct stu-dents. Now, as my generation hasincreasingly filled the ranks of rabbisand teachers, students are becoming dis-tanced from the Rav by a further gener-ation. However, while I shared the expe-

rience of learning from the Rav’s stu-dents with those directly older andyounger than I, I was learning atYeshiva University during the terribleyear in which we lost three great teach-ers—Rav Shraga Feivel Paretsky, RavDavid Lifschitz and the Rav.

Shortly after the Rav’s passing,there was a period of time when eulo-gies for him were delivered almostnightly by roshei yeshivah at the RabbiIsaac Elchanan Theological Seminary(RIETS). This was their opportunity tocommemorate their distinguished men-tor’s accomplishments, as well as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for studentslike me to gain multiple and sequentialinsights into the Rav. The differences inthese respective portraits were, however,striking. In one rosh yeshivah’s descrip-tion, the Rav seemed like a misunder-stood halachist who had strange prac-tices based on unique halachic rulings.From another’s perspective, he was afiery ba’al mussar. One rosh yeshivahportrayed him as an abstract lamdanand another as a religious conservativewho opposed halachic change exceptwhen absolutely necessary and halachi-cally justifiable. And so on.

In some respects these varyingperspectives were quite amusing,because each speaker emphasized a facetof the Rav that was most reflected inthe speaker himself. Clearly, the speakerconcentrated on those aspects of theRav that he found most compelling.

Rabbi Student is the president of Yashar Booksand is the author of a popular blog atTorahMusings.com. He would like to thankSteve Brizel for his extremely helpful commentson this article.

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Yet, the very fact that so many differentpeople could find an exemplar of differ-ent disciplines in the Rav was the mostrevealing discovery. Initially, I was con-fused about these widely varyingdescriptions, but eventually I realizedthat they are, in fact, all true. The Ravwas simply a proverbial “IshHa’eshkolot,” a man who mastered manydifferent and varied subjects.1 The Ravwas at the same time an abstractlamdan, a creative philosopher, anexpert posek, a master orator, a religiousconservative, an advocate for necessaryand appropriate religious change andmuch more.

I occasionally hear people com-plaining today that the Rav is quotedtoo often in Modern Orthodox circles.Are we obsessed with him? My responseis that the same tendency can be foundamong the students of the Rambam,the Vilna Gaon, the Chazon Ish andother towering figures in Jewish intellec-tual history. The depth and originalityof the Rav’s scholarship combined withthe breadth of his scholarly reach madehim a unique figure in Jewish historywhose impact will be felt for centuriesto come.

The multiplicity of perspectiveson the Rav’s scholarship and personali-ty has made it exceptionally difficultto capture who he was.2 Books pub-lished about him tend to reflect onlyone aspect of his multi-faceted person-ality. Clearly, it is extremely difficultfor authors and editors to encapsulatethe Rav’s broad intellectual achieve-ments into a single volume. However,perhaps inadvertently, an importantstep towards doing so has been takenin a surprising format: the MachzorMesoras HaRav on Rosh Hashanahand Yom Kippur.

Dr. Arnold Lustiger, together withRabbi Michael Taubes and with thehelp of a number of other distinguishedcontributors, has published machzorimfor Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippurwith a commentary adapted from theteachings of the Rav. The concept isfairly simple. The Rav spoke and wroteextensively about the High Holidays,

and the themes of prayer and repen-tance, in particular, played an importantrole in his view of the role of man inthis world. Dr. Lustiger compiled hun-dreds of comments from the Rav’s pub-lished writings and other assortedsources, and formatted them into a run-ning commentary on the machzor.Again, not a complex idea. However,the execution of this plan is simplyremarkable. Dr. Lustiger scoured theincreasingly voluminous canon of pub-lished works by the Rav and his stu-dents. His search was so broad that heeven included the notes of a student inRav Soloveitchik’s graduate class in theearly 1950s and recent articles in theYeshiva College newspaper.

Furthermore, no genre of theRav’s thinking was omitted from thecommentary. The machzorim are repletewith lamdut,3 practical halachah,4 phi-losophy,5 inspiring stories,6 homileticalinterpretations,7 kabbalah,8 studies inthe structure of prayer9 and more. Thebest representation of what I understandto be the Rav’s intellectual breadth todate can be found in the commentaryto these machzorim. The Rav demon-strates that we need to study the text ofthe prayers for each layer of depth,including lamdut, aggadah, grammarand literary themes.

Understandably, the format ofsuch a commentary cannot accommo-date the Rav’s depth. Certain philo-sophical insights of his are almostimpenetrable without consulting thetext from which they were taken. Forexample, the statement that God “istruthful because His thought is identicalwith reality” (Yom Kippur Machzor, 83)is indecipherable without looking upthe source of this quote in TheEmergence of Ethical Man (p. 140) andreading the prior two pages. Similarly,the statement, “We are compelled tothank and praise God for all the won-ders that He does on our behalf despitethe fact that He transcends all song andpraise” (YKM, 316) compels one tolook up the source in Shiurim LeZecherAbba Mori (vol. 2, p. 19) and to learnthe full halachic background to this

insight. But this observation is not to betaken as a criticism of the commentary;quite the opposite. It is remarkable howmuch depth Dr. Lustiger was able toinclude in these works, which due tothe limitations of the format must nec-essarily be brief. It is as if these two vol-umes contain so much material thatthey are bursting at the binding.

Students of the Rav’s teachingswill be amply rewarded by the com-mentary. The vast references cover mul-tiple genres that include specific cita-tions so original ideas can be quicklyfound. Those without extensive famil-iarity with the Rav’s thinking will findmany examples of comments that areunderstandable as they are, in additionto the many that are mere “tastes” andrequire examining the original source.The commentary is at times inspiringand informative, but always fascinating.The essays at the beginning of eachmachzor provide a quick guide to themain thoughts in the commentaries butstill leave the bulk of insights to befound through careful reading.

An important feature in thesemachzorim, and one that I suspect willdelight many readers but may annoyothers (myself among the former), is theinclusion of “Hanhagos HaRav,” thehalachic practices of the Rav. Dr.Lustiger consulted with those who knewthe Rav’s practices best, most notablyRabbi Menachem Gopin, who sat downwith the Rav towards the end of his lifewith the specific intent of recording hispractices. He then compiled a list of theRav’s unique halachic practices regard-ing prayer in general and RoshHashanah and Yom Kippur in particu-lar. These are listed in a separate sectionat the beginning of each machzor andthen incorporated into the text as foot-notes. This last point is significant inthat the Rav changed the text of certainpassages in prayer, particularly in theMussaf of Rosh Hashanah.

The decision to incorporate thesechanges as footnotes and not into thetext itself allows those who wish to usethe currently standard machzor text—certainly the vast majority of readers—

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Seymour AdlerHyman Arbesfeld

Terrence AugenbraunJoseph Bensmihen

Max BerlinRabbi Hershel Billet

Adam CharneyDaniel Chill

Elisheva DiamondDennis M. Eisenberg

David GerstleyChaim GottesmanRichard GrossmanMarvin HerskowitzStanley HillelsohnLorraine Hoffman

Rabbi Emanuel HolzerDr. David HurwitzGustave Jacobs

Mordecai D. Katz

Aaron KinderlehrerShlomo KoyfmanSeymour Kraut

Dr. Benzion KrupkaMorey Levovitz

Dr. Marian Stoltz-LoikeVivian LuchinsJonathan Mell

Irwin NachimsonAvery Neumark

Isabelle NovakSteve Orlow

Stuart PanishPaul Pinkus

Dr. Ilene ReemanHoward Rhine

Dr. Howard RosenthalEric Rothner

Rabbi Fabian SchonfeldElaine Schreiber

Howard ShapiroBarbie Lehmann Siegel

Jordan SloneJacob WeichholzHeshy WengrowEsther Williams

Mira ZeffrenJonathan Zelinger

Daisy BermanMarvin Bienenfeld

Larry BrownDonald B. ButlerLaurie CooperPace Cooper

Leon EisenbergDr. Abraham Freilich

David FundEugene Gluck

Shari Greenberg-GoldRabbi Ronald GreenwaldRabbi Joseph Grunblatt

Rabbi Marvin HierMalcolm Hoenlein

Richard JoelRabbi Zev LeffGerald LermanNathan LewinAlan Lipman

Rabbi Haskel LooksteinMoses Marx

Mrs. Joseph K. MillerMichael Miller

Jack NagelRabbi Sheftel Meir Neuberger

David NovakTerry Novetsky

Rabbi Ralph PelcovitzWilliam Rapfogel

Dr. Marcel ReischerJulius RosenzweigDr. Kurt Rothschild

David RubinLee C. Samson

Rabbi Jacob J. SchacterEli Schlossberg

Norman SchmutterRabbi Max N. SchreierRabbi Allen Schwartz

Steven H. SholkDr. Israel Singer

Dr. Edward L. SteinbergDr. Chaim Wasserman

Rabbi Berel WeinGary WeissZev Wolfson

L E A D E R S H I P O F T H E O R T H O D O X U N I O N

*Deceased

D o i n g m o r e f o r y o u a n d y o u r c o m m u n i t y

PRESIDENTStephen J. Savitsky

CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARDHarvey Blitz

CHAIRMAN, BOARD OFGOVERNORS

Martin Nachimson

VICE CHAIRMEN,BOARD OF DIRECTORSSeymour J. Abrams

Morry Weiss

VICE CHAIRMAN,BOARD OF GOVERNORSJay L. Schottenstein

SENIOR VICE PRESIDENTSEmanuel J. Adler

Mark BaneAllen I. FaginElliot Gibber

Henry I. RothmanStanley Weinstein

Michael WimpfheimerHarvey Wolinetz

TREASURERHoward Margolin

SECRETARYMartin I. Fineberg

NATIONAL VICE PRESIDENTSMitchel R. Aeder

Fred EhrmanDr. Michael J. Elman

Dr. Steven KatzMoshe D. KrupkaDr. David LuchinsAron U. RaskasGerald SchreckRoy Spiewak

Dr. Shimmy Y. TennenbaumDavid Zeffren

ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENTSBenham DayanimJonathan HalpertCharles Harary

Gary LitkeBarry Ray

Franklyn Snitow

HONORARY PRESIDENTSJulius Berman

Moses I. FeuersteinMandell I. Ganchrow, MD

Harold M. Jacobs*Joseph Karasick

Prof. Shimon KwestelSheldon Rudoff

HONORARY CHAIRMEN OF THE BOARDSamuel L. Brennglass*

Marcos D. KatzMarcel Weber

HONORARY VICE PRESIDENTSHoward Tzvi Friedman

Dr. Bernard LanderJoseph MacyDonald PressJoel SchreiberDavid Woolf

Jerry WolaskyAtlantic Seaboard

Laurence W. ZeifmanCanada

Judge Daniel ButlerCentral East

Alan RothmanLong Island

Neal SteinMidwest

David ZimbleNew England

Yitzchak FundIsrael

Ari FuchsNew Jersey

Eli GenauerNorthwest

Dr. Stanley FrohlingerSouth

Alan FriedmanWest Coast

V I C E P R E S I D E N T S F O R R E G I O N S

B O A R D O F D I R E C T O R S

B O A R D O F G O V E R N O R S

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to do so easily. However, I am sure that some users of the mach-zor would rather have the entire section completely removed.Undue emphasis on the Rav’s private customs and practicesdoes, in some sense, make him seem like simply a man withstrange practices rather than the towering intellectual figure thathe was. Additionally, the two types of footnotes—commentaryand practices—occasionally blend into each other when they runonto multiple pages and make for somewhat confusing reading.Nevertheless, I personally found the value of including thesepractices to outweigh these concerns.

In summary, these machzorim are indispensable for anyonelooking to learn about the themes and prayers of the HighHolidays or about the thought and methodologies of the Rav. �JA

Notes 1. A play on the phrase “ish shehakol bo,” a man who embodies

everything. See Sotah 47a-b and Rambam’s Commentary on theMishnah, Sotah 9:9.

2. To date, there has been no comprehensive biography pub-lished on the Rav. Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff ’s two-volume TheRav: The World of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik is a fascinating book, butit is hardly a comprehensive biography.

3. For example, see Rosh Hashanah Machzor, 447-449, regardingthe blessing over blowing/hearing the shofar.

4. As can be seen throughout the Hanhagos HaRav sections, dis-cussed later in this review.

5. See RHM, 535, about how God rules through natural andmoral law, and the example quoted in the next paragraph of this review.

Interestingly, I did not find any mention of a non-religious ornon-Jewish philosopher in the machzorim, although the quotationsfrom the Rav’s philosophical works certainly bear the influence of thephilosophers mentioned in those books. For example, the Rav’s theoryof time (e.g., RHM, 543-544) is clearly influenced by the views ofMartin Heidegger. When I made this observation on my blog, com-menters directed me to an article that discusses this as well as a state-ment by the Rav that he attended a course taught by Heidegger (inRakeffet-Rothkoff, vol. 1, p. 195). See this discussion athttp://hirhurim.blogspot.com/2006/10/rav-soloveitchik-and-heideg-ger.html.

However, it is understandable why the names of non-religiousand non-Jewish philosophers would not be mentioned in a prayer-book. See the responsum of Rabbi Amram Gaon, quoted by theRamban and other Rishonim in their commentaries to AvodahZarah 35b, and the series of posts on my blog titled “Citation ofNon-Orthodox Scholars.” As these machzorim are intended for syn-agogue use and for ritual purposes, they are different from a philo-sophical book.

6. See RHM, 98-99, about Rabbi Chaim Soloveitchik’s movingRosh Hashanah Kiddush and RHM, 522-525, about the teacher fromthe Rav’s youth explaining to him that Rosh Hashanah is about coro-nating God as king.

7. See RHM, 242-244, about God sitting on his throne and lis-tening to prayers and RHM, 316-317, about how the tradition unifiesacross generations.

8. See RHM, 268-269 and 309-311, about tzimtzum and RHM,234-235 and 301-302, about itaruta diltata.

9. See YKM, 89, about how the praises “great, mighty and awe-some God” refer to the first three blessings of the Shemoneh Esrei andYKM, 105, for the calming effect of the Shemoneh Esrei’s final bless-ing, for peace in the world, after the previous jarring prayers.

Statement of Ownership, Management and CirculationPublication Title: Jewish Action. 2. Publication No. 005-239. 3. Filing Date: October 23, 2007. 4. Issue Frequency:Quarterly. 5. No. of Issues Published Annually: Four. 6. Annual Subscription Price: $12.00. 7. Complete MailingAddress of Known Office of Publication: Orthodox Union, 11 Broadway, NY, NY, 10004. 8. Complete Mailing Addressof Headquarters or General Business Office of Publisher: Same. 9. Full Names and Complete Mailing Addresses ofPublisher, Editor and Managing Editor: Publisher: Orthodox Union, 11 Broadway, NY, NY, 10004. Editor: NechamaCarmel, 11 Broadway, NY, NY, 10004. Managing Editor: Eliezer Edelman, 11 Broadway, NY, NY, 10004. 10. Owner:Orthodox Union, 11 Broadway, NY, NY, 10004. 11. Known Bondholders, Mortgagees, and Other Security HoldersOwning or Holding 1 Percent or More of Total Amount of Bonds: None. 12. Tax Status (For completion by nonprofitorganizations authorized to mail at nonprofit rates): The purpose, function, and nonprofit status of this organizationand the exempt status for federal income purposes has not changed during the preceding 12 months. 13. PublicationTitle: Jewish Action. 14. Issue Date for Circulation Data Below: November 21, 2007.

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