Joseph B. Soloveitchik’s Most Important Book

First published in a Hebrew-language rabbinic journal in 1944, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik’s monograph Ish ha-Halakhah established its author as one of the major Jewish theologians of the 20th century. Decades later, it was rendered into English by Lawrence Kaplan and published as a stand-alone book, The Halakhic Man. Drawing on encyclopedic rabbinic knowledge, Catholic existentialism, and German philosophy, the book provides a theological framework for understanding not Orthodox Jewish belief, but the way the religion is lived and practiced. Kaplan discusses this work, and Soloveitchik more broadly, in conversation with J.J. Kimche. (Audio, 83 minutes.)