In the Room Where it Happened: An Interview with Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff

In 1956, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik delivered a public lecture at Yeshiva University on the occasion of Israel’s 8th Independence Day. That lecture became Kol Dodi Dofek – one of the most influential works of Religious Zionist philosophy ever written. 

For most Jews today, it is a text to be studied. But there were people in the room that night for whom it was something else entirely. One of them was a young Aaron Rothkoff, then a teenager active in Bnei Akiva, who would go on to become Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff – teacher, historian, and one of the foremost transmitters of the Rav’s legacy to generations of students in the United States, Israel, post-Soviet Russia, and beyond. Rabbi Aron White spoke with him about what it meant to hear the Rav speak, and how those teachings shaped a generation of American Jews.

Take us back to 1956. What brought you to Lamport Auditorium at Yeshiva University that night?

I grew up in the Bronx, where there were hundreds of thousands of Jews, many of whom were very assimilated. I was involved in Bnei Akiva as a chanich and then a madrich, and Bnei Akiva played a significant role in helping Jews stay religious – in fact, I also met my wife there. Before Yom HaAtzmaut in 1956, it was announced that Rabbi Soloveitchik would be speaking at Yeshiva University, and many of us from Bnei Akiva decided to attend.

It wasn’t just a drasha. It was an event. It was standing room only, and there was an energy in the room that enthused us all. That drasha of Kol Dodi Dofek changed my life and the lives of many people in that room. It was the greatest description of Religious Zionism, I believe, to this day. As teenagers, did we really understand the philosophical depth, every level of meaning, every reference in Chazal that the Rav was drawing on? We didn’t. But hearing the description of the six knocks – the way that G-d is calling to us – was something unique.

I was privileged to hear Rabbi Soloveitchik many times, but this drasha was something special. There is a story about the Alter of Novhardok, who said: “I heard Rabbi Yisrael Salanter speak thirteen times. The first twelve I went over to him and said ‘yasher koach,’ but the thirteenth changed my life.” That is how it goes with the great darshanim.

You describe it as transformative – not only for you, but for many others in the room. Can you paint a picture of what Jewish life looked like in America at that time?

If one reads certain books of popular Jewish history, the story told is that American Jewry had nothing before the 1940s, and that the refugees from Europe were the ones who built American Jewry, especially American Orthodoxy. This is not entirely true, but American Orthodoxy was indeed transformed by the wave of European Jews who came in the years before, during, and after the Holocaust.

The 1950s were a time when it was still not easy to maintain a basic Orthodox lifestyle. Rabbi Hershel Schachter describes how there were early Shabbat morning minyanim at 6:30am, because people would come to davening and then go directly to their jobs – they were working six-and-a-half day work weeks, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to put food on the table. As I said, Bnei Akiva had a profound role in preserving Torah observance for many Jews. I was a third-generation American, but most of my friends were either survivors or children of survivors of the Holocaust. Even though my family had been spared, I definitely grew up in the shadow of the Holocaust.

It was also a time when different Jewish organizations and outlooks were developing. Rabbi Soloveitchik had initially been aligned with Agudat Yisrael. His grandfather Rav Chaim was stridently anti-Zionist. His father Rav Moshe was already a little more open, including teaching in the Tachkemoni schools of Mizrachi in Warsaw. Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik was even one of the candidates for Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv in 1935 – as the candidate of Agudat Yisrael. However, he gradually moved toward identifying with Mizrachi. One critical moment in this shift was the Rabbis’ March to Washington in 1943, when hundreds of rabbis, including Agudah leader Rabbi Eliezer Silver, requested to meet with President Roosevelt to plead for greater action in saving Jews from the Holocaust. President Roosevelt effectively slammed the door in their face, and Rabbi Soloveitchik recognized that certain approaches from the “Old World” required a fundamentally new response. That activist orientation went hand in hand with his shift toward Mizrachi.

Can you speak about the impact his teachings had, not only on you personally, but on your generation more broadly?

There are so many people from that time, a whole generation of young American Jews who would ultimately come to Israel and be involved in building up the land and Torah here. One such person was my madricha at Bnei Akiva, Miriam, who would later become known by her married name, Miriam Levinger. She was an inspiring personality: “Everyone has a social security number, but it’s a choice whether we use our lives to do something meaningful. This is the choice that Hashem gives us.” She made Aliyah with her husband Moshe Levinger, and they were among the first Jews to move back to Chevron after the Six Day War. Her dedication, and her husband’s, to the cause of yishuv haAretz was legendary, and had a profound impact on us personally. My wife said to me: “Miriam is sleeping on the floor in Chevron. What are we doing here in our nice house in New Jersey?” It was a catalyst for our own Aliyah a few years later.

Another contemporary of mine was Rabbi Avraham Silvert, who established an important religious high school in Be’er Sheva to serve the many traditional immigrants arriving in Israel at that time. People like Rabbi Dovid Miller, who would go on to become the Rosh Kollel at Yeshiva University’s Gruss Kollel, had their first teaching positions at Rabbi Silvert’s school. I could go on with so many examples. And perhaps the most celebrated is Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, who came on Aliyah inspired by his father-in-law’s teachings.

Today, Rabbi Soloveitchik’s teachings are studied in Israeli schools, yeshivot, academic settings, and public forums. That wasn’t always the case. How have you seen that change over the course of your years in Israel?

When I came on Aliyah, I was something of a strange bird as a student of Rabbi Soloveitchik. I remember giving some shiurim and noticing that none other than Justice Menachem Elon was attending. I went over and asked him: “Justice Elon, you are an accomplished talmid chacham. What brings you to my shiurim?” He said: “You are a student of Rabbi Soloveitchik. We have heard a great deal about him, but don’t get to hear from him directly, so hearing from his students is very meaningful.” Thankfully, after many decades, his teachings have become far more accessible and widely known. The whole concept of Yeshiva University, of Torah applied to the full range of society, is ever more relevant in Israel, as we seek to build a Jewish state in every dimension of that phrase. I am gratified that today the Torah of Rav Soloveitchik is far better known across Israeli society.