Welcome to the Tikva podcast on Great Jewish Essays and Ideas.

I'm your host, Eric Cohen.

Our subject today is Joseph B. Soloveitchik's classic 1964 essay confrontation, one of those rare enduring masterpieces that is both a profound

theological reflection on human nature and an important work of Jewish communal policy.

This essay in the many commentaries, conversations, and commitments that have fallen in its wake

has long shaped how many traditional Jews engage in the public life of modern society

and how Orthodox Jews see their relationship to modern Christians and other faith communities.

To discuss this important essay, it's my great pleasure to welcome my good friend,

Rabbi Mayors Soloveitchik, Senior Rabbi of the Spanish Spanish Portuguese synagogue in New York, and the founder and

director of the Strauss Center on Torah and Western Thought. I'll assume the name Soloveitchik is just a

coincidence, right? Common Jewish name. No relation. Spell the name differently. Isn't your youngest son

actually named after the author of this essay? He is. Ralph Soloveitchik spelled his last name with a

T, and we do not. And we like to say that we

finally restored the Joseph Salavichic name without the tea. No pressure on this kid.

When he was a baby, we called him the lonely baby. That's very good. M Myron and existential angst. Exactly. Okay, before we get into the essay itself, can you say a brief word about who Joseph Soloveitchik was? Why was he such an important figure? And where does this essay confrontation fit within his larger project of trying to define Orthodox Judaism in America? Sure. sort of Salavachwechik, who I'm going to call, either Rav Soloveh

throughout the course of this conversation, was the grandson of Rav Chaym Salavich,

otherwise known as Rav Chirvajar, the Rav of Brisk, and known as the founder of the brisker method of Talmud study,

which changed the way Talmud has studied in yeshiva's first in Europe and now all over the world.

To this day, that method is used.

He was known as both, Ryhahim, as both an incredibly dedicated pastor,

but also a genius of the first one.

And Rav Salavachik grew up imbibing this method of Talmud study from his father,

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