Chumash Mesoras HaRav Sefer Vayikra including Haftarah [Hardcover]

Chumash Mesoras HaRav Sefer Vayikra [Hardcover]
By: Arnold Lustiger

Product Description
Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik (the Rav) was the towering rabbinic thinker of the twentieth century. In addition to his wellspring of Torah knowledge, the Rav taught, wrote and lectured extensively on Chumash. The Rav, however, never wrote a systematic commentary on Chumash, and, until now, the only way to study his interpretation and analysis of Chumash was to search for pertinent material by wading through the Rav's published writings and hard-to-find audio tapes of his lectures and shiurim. Now, for the first time, the Rav's teachings on Chumash have been collected into a published commentary on Sefer Vayikra (The Book of Leviticus). Commentary by the Rav on the weekly Haftarah is included.

The fact of the excellence of this series has already been established. This volume continues the excellent work of Dr. Arnold Lustiger in cobbling together commentary on Chumash Vayikra from all the places important thoughts were hiding among all the published works of Rav Soloveitchik. As in previous volumes, the full range of Rav Soloveitchik s diverse audiences is represented in the selection. Some pieces are original and profound, and intended for the sophisticated reader. Others warrant inclusion because they express ideas that are well known, but conveyed so poetically that they penetrate more deeply. Different readers will find different passages to be the most significant to their personal preferences and needs. Here is an excerpt that might help get people in the mood to make the trip to the local seforim store, or guide the mouse to the appropriate place to click an order. 17:10 If man wants to defeat death and scoff at nihility he must somehow elevate himself above this order of meaningless existence and come close to the order of eternity. To gain a pass to everlasting reality, he must represent God. He must remember God, become His shaliach, His ambassador. He must carry His message and convey it through action. He must become the medium through which God addresses Himself to the world: the instrument of revelation. The ideal of prophecy must find at least partial realization in all of us. This is possible only if the individual Jew includes himself in Knesses Yisrael, the community which was burdened at the dawn of history with the divine logos and ethos, God s word and ethical system, whose historic existence is unconditionally consecrated to one goal only the fulfillment of the covenant through a commitment to a singular modus existentis, a mode of existence willed by God. Only when the individual joins this community may he lay claim to a deathless existence. Only through identification with the origin may one gain eternal life. It is interesting that the term kares, cutting off which, according to our Sages, refers to severance from the transcendental order of existence is mostly linked in the Bible with the expression from the community of Israel (Ex. 12:19) or , from among his people. Judaism identifies the termination of existence with cutting off the self from the community, for the individual strikes roots in eternity only by abiding within its confines. Dr. Lustiger informs us of the particular difficulty in preparing this volume. Because there is little narrative in Vaykra, much more of the commentary is halachic and keyed to two of the most abstruse areas of halacha kodashim and taharos. Dr. Lustiger, despite his extensive background in learning, modestly decided that he needed extra help in wading through the Rav s shiurim on these areas. So he enlisted the help of a sefer explicating Rav Soloveitchik s shiurim on Maseches Kerisus by R. Yair Kahn of Yeshivat Har Etzion, aided by further assistance from Dr. Lustiger s son, who learned kodashim at R. Tzvi Kaplan s kollel in Yerushalayim, continuing on to Lakewood. It is a fitting testimony to the special quality of Rav Soloveitchik s Torah that his words can bring together as they should the disparate flavors and preferences of Brisk, YU, the Gush, R. Tzvi Kaplan, and BMG. This is Torah as it should be.--Cross-Currents - R. Yitzchok Adlerstein

About the Author

Dr. Arnold Lustiger previously edited Chumash Mesoras Harav - Sefer Bereishis, and Sefer Shemos, Machzor Mesoras Harav on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, Before Hashem You Shall Be Purified: Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik on the Days of Awe, and Derashot Harav: selected lectures of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik