Rabbi Riskin Confronts Rav Soloveitchik in Makor Rishon: Jewish Israel Responds
Rabbi Riskin Confronts Rav Soloveitchik in Makor Rishon: Jewish Israel Responds In May 2012 the Israeli newspaper Makor Rishon ran a seven-page feature article, penned by Chief Rabbi of Efrat Shlomo Riskin, in their "Shabbat HaGadol" supplement. The subject matter was whether or not Jewish-Christian theological dialogue is permissible. Rabbi Riskin, a maverick on interfaith issues, has on more than one occasion ventured out onto an extreme theological limb. This time around, Rabbi Riskin appears to have inverted the inherent intent of Rabbi Joseph Dov Ber Soloveitchik’s (J.B. Soloveitchik, "the Rav") major essay on the subject, "Confrontation". The treatise, which was formulated in 1964, is widely interpreted within Orthodox circles to be a halachic psak proscribing interfaith theological encounters. However Rabbi Riskin contends, in the Makor Rishon article, that the intention of the Rav's essay was to permit, rather than prohibit, such theological dialogue. Concurrently, Riskin opens his personal "postscript" to Soloveitchik's "Confrontation" by inferring that the timing and the history of the document limits its application, as it was written one and a half years before the ratification of Nostra Aetate, and in response to the Catholic-Jewish dialogue taking place at the time. Rabbi Riskin's premise is puzzling, because it is well documented in Rav Soloveitchik's personal letters, as well as noted in contemporary academic papers, that the Rav had already formulated his firm position on interfaith concerns as early as 1950 - many years before the Vatican ll initiative. In addition, “Confrontation” continued to guide the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) on interfaith developments well into the 1980's, long after Nostra Aetate.
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