RUTHFULLY YOURS

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Christian M. Rutishauser’s The Human Condition in the Thought of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik has just been published by Ktav (having earlier appeared in German). Quite apart from Rutishauser’s scholarship, the book is noteworthy in that Rutishauser is a prominent Jesuit priest (see here; for those who don’t know, the University of Scranton is also Jesuit). The Seforim Blog is happy to present the introduction to the book where Rutishauser explains what led him to the Rav.
A Catholic Glimpse of Rav Soloveitchik

I never met Rav Soloveitchik personally. The reason is not only that I was born in the second half of the twentieth century and live in Europe. Actually, apart from a few scholars, Soloveitchik was hardly known in the German speaking world of the 1980s and 1990s. As a student of Catholic theology with a deep interest in philosophy, I neither met him nor came across his work, even though I moved around the academic world of Germany and France with an open and interested mind. As a Jesuit and a chaplain at Bern University, I organized study tours to Israel almost every year, but even there I never heard of him. Neither my involvement in Jewish-Christian dialogue in Switzerland nor my deep interest in Judaism altered any of this, at least for some time.

Then a lucky coincidence changed everything. In July 1997, I was attending an Ulpan at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. During a break one day, I walked over to the Hecht Synagogue on the Mount Scopus campus. I decided look around, more to kill time than out of any particular interest. I wandered about the room, enjoying its coolness on this hot summer day, browsing aimlessly among the books displayed on the shelves along the wall. By chance I picked up a copy of Halakhic Man by the Rav—naturally in the English translation, as my Ivrit would not have allowed me to read the original. The name Soloveitchik did not ring a bell. Opening the book at random, I read a few chapters and became so fascinated by its outline of the Orthodox life ideal that I “kidnapped” the book from the synagogue. Naturally the books were not supposed to be removed, but as everyone knows, students find ways to get around rules of this kind. Actually, I returned the book four days later, after I finished reading it. I would have liked to know more about Soloveitchik, but I didn’t follow up on my interest at that time. Nevertheless, I was deeply impressed by the original way he presented, and above all differentiated, the homo religiosus; the modern scientist and the halakhic man stayed with me.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/23/editorial-truth-in-tragedy/ A retired veteran of the British Royal Marines slipped into a favorite seat at his familiar coffee shop in Nairobi’s upscale Westgate Mall on a sunny late September day and settled down for his midday cup of joe. Shots rang out, and soon Islamic raiders ran through the shops killing everyone who looked like […]

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/23/editorial-cut-the-gangster-talk/

President Obama regards promises as pie crusts, only to be broken, but he has kept one promise, which deserves recognition. He promised to change the tone and tenor of Washington, and so he has. The tenor is loud and the tone is sour, and he is in large measure responsible.

During the government shutdown Mr. Obama often likened his opponents to terrorists. That’s why, he said in explanation, he refused to bargain with Congress. “It’s tempting not to negotiate with hostage takers unless the hostage gets harmed,” said Mr. Obama. “In this case, the hostage was the American people, and I was not willing to see them get harmed.” His allies took this as a signal to employ his slash-and-burn language.

Rep. Steve Cohen, a loyal Democrat from Memphis, compared his Republican colleagues in the House to al Qaeda sleeper cells. “We take an oath to support the country against all enemies foreign and domestic,” he told MSNBC, “and these are the domestic enemies.” Rep. Alan Grayson of Florida raised the temperature even more, likening the Tea Party to the Ku Klux Klan in an email, which featured an image of a burning cross as the “T” in Tea Party. Moveon.org started a petition demanding that Speaker John Boehner and his Republicans be arrested and tried for sedition.

MSNBC took the cue from the White House and ran with it. Chris Matthews of MSNBC, ever ready to say wild and crazy things, calls Republicans racists and likens them to slaveholders, asking whether Tea Party members “still count blacks as three-fifths?” Chris, who must have been absent the day his junior-high school class studied American history, doesn’t understand that slaves were counted as three-fifths of a citizen to reduce the South’s slaveholding representation in the House. His fellow talking head Martin Bashir recently inquired whether “Ted Cruz is a bit like the David Koresh of the Republican Party?” Koresh was the leader of the Branch Davidian religious sect whose compound was raided by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms on the order of Attorney General Janet Reno, a Democrat, killing 54 adults and 28 children.

http://pjmedia.com/blog/the-gender-wars/?print=1 I feel that “man-hating” is an honorable and viable political act, that the oppressed have a right to class-hatred against the class that is oppressing them. — Robin Morgan, Going Too Far: The Personal Chronicle of a Feminist [1], p 178. I am watching, as I write, four separate work crews directly across the […]

http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2013/10/21/burned-alive-for-47/?print=1 Eid al-Adha, the Muslim feast commemorating Abraham’s sacrifice of his son Ishmael, was Tuesday. Muslims frequently give special gifts (eidi) to those they love on such festive days, but in Muhammad Aslam’s home in Faisalabad, the great day came and went and Aslam had no eidi for his wife. In fact, she recounted later, […]

http://pjmedia.com/jchristianadams/

It has become clear after the government shutdown that if Obamacare isn’t destroyed now, it will be with us forever. Waiting until after a series of elections to try to kill it is a fool’s errand. There will never be more support for ending Obamacare than there will be in the next few months. Once the dependency class hooks up their Obamacare IV, it’s game over.

Let’s inventory how Texas Senator Ted Cruz won territory in the government shutdown fight.

First, the Left knows victories are won through the fight. This is the core of the new Alinskyite model of the Left — continuous agitation, continuous fundraising, continuous energy. The fight builds support and support builds the fight.

The Cruz-led fight over the last few weeks has done the same thing for conservatives. Cruz strengthened the fight against Obamacare because he exposed the insider D.C. establishment in a way nobody else has. True, polls show that Americans have a lower opinion of the Republican Party after the fight. But many of those with a lower opinion are regular conservative Americans who saw the establishment members of the GOP turn and bolt in the face of the fight. Over two million signed a petition supporting Cruz. That’s a heck of an email list, generated almost overnight.

Deal-making and compromise have pushed the country toward fiscal catastrophe. Only Cruz and his supporters stood fast, and Americans noticed.

http://pjmedia.com/blog/the-gops-next-strategy-to-fight-obamacare/?print=1 WASHINGTON – Still sore after the whipping administered by President Obama and Senate Democrats over the government shutdown, congressional Republicans nonetheless insist they remain committed to shutting down the Affordable Care Act. House Republicans, especially those with ties to the Tea Party, targeted what is popularly known as Obamacare from the outset of the […]

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303902404579152082961445984?mod=Opinion_newsreel_1

The collapse of ObamaCare is the tip of the iceberg for the magical Obama presidency.

From the moment he emerged in the public eye with his 2004 speech at the Democratic Convention and through his astonishing defeat of the Clintons in 2008, Barack Obama’s calling card has been credibility. He speaks, and enough of the world believes to keep his presidency afloat. Or used to.

All of a sudden, from Washington to Riyadh, Barack Obama’s credibility is melting.

Amid the predictable collapse the past week of HealthCare.gov’s too-complex technology, not enough notice was given to Sen. Marco Rubio’s statement that the chances for success on immigration reform are about dead. Why? Because, said Sen. Rubio, there is “a lack of trust” in the president’s commitments.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303448104579149503424494292?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion The recent wrangling in Washington over the debt ceiling, with both sides promising to return to battle early next year, never got around to considering this proposition: Maybe debt ceilings are a bad idea, because they may lead to increased spending.A debt ceiling may seem like a good way to constrain out-of-control government, by […]

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4030/lesser-superpower The traditional American posture as the guarantor of freedom and protector of allies, and the scourge of Nazis, Communists and al Qaeda is headed toward a less manageable, every-man-for-himself series of ad hoc arrangements that portend greater international instability in which terrorism and warfare thrive. Here is what happens when the United States is […]