Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik: Drashos and Writings

The book Drashos and Writings (Yiddish title: ‏דרשות און כּתבֿים ‏ [Droshes un ksovim]) includes ten Yiddish sermons and two speeches by Rabbi Soloveitchik, never previously published and transcribed from his hand-written Yiddish manuscript. It also reproduces the text of a series of ten articles which Rabbi Soloveitchik published in the Yiddish newspaper Tog-Morgn Zhurnal. The volume was edited by Professor David E. Fishman, who composed an introductory essay on Rabbi Soloveitchik and Yiddish.

Publisher's Blurb:

Yiddish was for many years the primary medium in which Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik gave his shiurim and drashos. This volume consists of drashos, speeches, and essays, written by the Rav in Yiddish between 1949 and 1958, and prepared for publication by David E. Fishman. Included are ten drashos and two speeches which have been preserved in the Rav's handwritten manuscript, and which are published in their original language for the first time. The volume also contains a series of articles by the Rav on Jewish religious values and contemporary problems of Judaism, which he published in the Yiddish newspaper Tog-Morgn Zhurnal. As Julius Berman writes in his preface, "when we open up this volume, […] those who know Yiddish will come as close as is humanly possibly to capture the experience of sitting in his presence and listening to his brilliant expositions of halakha and aggadah, drush and makhshava".

Language: Yiddish

Hardcover: 355 pages

Publisher: Ktav Publishing House (Jersey City, NJ; July, 2009)

[Links:] Rav Soloveitchik’s Greatest Hits, in Yiddish (English-language review by Dr. Arnold Lustiger in Jewish Book News, July, 2009)