Elijah Zvi Soloveitchik (also known as Elias Soloweyczyk) was likely born in Slutzk, Russia, in 1805. He died in London in 1881. He was the grandson of Hayyim ben Isaac of Volozhin (1749–1821), founder of the Volozhin yeshiva in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Elijah Zvi was an early member of the Soloveitchik family, which became a rabbinic dynasty during and after his life- time and a decendent is the current president of Yale University.
He was educated in the Volozhin yeshiva, the most prestigious Jewish institute of higher Jewish learning in the nineteenth century. Comparisons between Jacob Emden (1697-1776) and Soloveitchik are reasonable, and Soloveitchik himself may have viewed Emden as a precedent. Upon closer examination, however, Emden and Soloveitchik have little in common other than their belief in the morality (and non-idolatry) of Christianity and their belief that Jesus did not come to eradicate the law for Jews. Unlike Soloveitchik, Emden, who was familiar with the Gospels (he cites them often) never wrote extensively about them and never quite claimed, as Soloveitchik did, that there is no categorical distinction between Judaism and Jesus’ or “Christianity” bettter termed the Christian Faith.
This commentary, constructed by someone deeply knowledgeable of classical Judaism, executed with passion, candor, and sincerity, and driven by an unyielding, albeit naïve, belief that the author had solved a millennia-old problem between the two religions. Still, Soloveitchik offers us a window into the mind of one Eastern European Jew sifting through modernity and who courageously confronted what Jews mostly took for granted: the irreconcilability of Judaism and Christianity which stands, however allowing the Christain faith its vast scope and perhaps a better image of Jesus of Nazareth not the accretions of the folk knowledge distorted by Talmudic ignorance, just contorversy.
Rabbi Soloveitchik provides a great effort in reconciling Maimonides (RAMBAM) for the Litvak Perushim and this direction is appropriated by some Hassidics (although highly criticized by the Lithuanian Jews and other groups) mostly Chabad as their Rebbe Menachem Schneerson ecouraged such study throughout the remnants of Yiddish Judiasm today. Maimonides is analagous to what Thomas Aquinas’ devotion upon Aristotlian texts did with providing Rome a symmetrical system. Maimonides, the author of the “Guide for the Perplexed” would align with Classical Theism over what can only be described as panentheism of the Qehal’s Kabbalah which the RAMBAM rejects. Thomas’ metaphysical analogia entis and its logical conclusion through the work of Meister Eckhart stands analagous. Therefore, the ‘Great Western Tradition’ is not compatable with Modern Judiasm, but cut from the same cloth. However, Soloveitchik brings us back to the New Testament text and this is a safe place to dwell, even if his comment may seem earthy and unfamiliar.
The history of the twentieth century was not kind to Soloveitchik’s prediction, and, perhaps partly as a consequence, he and his work swallowed into obscurity until now. May we examine it anew. Not necessarily as a template for the reconstruction of Judaism and Christianity as much as a valiant attempt to bend the arc toward an era of co-existence and tolerance built on the dunghill of mutual animus and lingering hatred. Nevertheless, Jesus of Nazareth must be read as the Christ for there is no ‘yeshua’ in any other name.
