The Legacy of the Rav and the Rebbe

A steady buzz filled Yeshiva University’s Lamport Auditorium as over 700 people arrived for the highly anticipated evening titled “Living the Legacy of the Rebbe and the Rav”. The discussion focused on the special relationship between the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Reb Menachem Mendel Schneerson, and Rav Joseph B. Soloveitchik, featuring prominent speakers from both the YU and Lubavitch communities. YU’s Chabad Club, partnering with Chabad of Washington Heights and the Rohr Chabad House at Columbia University, hosted the event. A conversation years in the making, the evening gave some insight into the relationship between two of the greatest leaders of this generation and the commonalities they found despite their differences.

As Rabbi Moshe Weinberger of Yeshiva University noted in his introduction, “Each one was so loved, revered and misunderstood.” The controversies surrounding the relationship were not ignored throughout the night; Rabbi Dr. Jacob J. Schacter mentioned the Rav’s family and their outrage when his father, the late Rabbi Herschel Schachter, brought the Rav to the Rebbe’s farbrengen in 1980 on the tenth of Shvat, the anniversary of the day that the Rebbe accepted his position as the seventh Rebbe of Lubavitch.

The audience’s attention was then directed to a video of Rav Soloveitchik attending the farbrengen, and the speakers that followed noted the remarkable encounter. The Rebbe standing both when the Rav arrived and left, the moments that felt like ages as they said their goodbyes and grasped hands, and as Rabbi Yosef Y. Jacobson noted later, “Two giants, two great minds, two gigantic souls. The relationship, the respect, the love is extremely deep, more than will be expressed this evening. When they met at the end of Rav Soloveitchik’s stay at the farbrengen, you saw that they really liked each other. You could see it in their faces. The eyes, the eyes tell a story. And if I’m not mistaken, their eyes told some of the story.”

Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky, personal secretary to the Lubavitcher Rebbe for over forty years, told of his personal experiences with both the Rav and the Rebbe. Rav Soloveitchik came to Boston in 1933 and in December of that year, Rabbi Krinsky was born. The Rav personally attended his bris.  Rabbi Krinsky was one of the first children registered in Maimonides, which was founded by the Rav. Each time he went to Boston, the Rebbe made sure to send him to the Rav. For continued this visits for the next twenty-five years.

When asked about running Chabad programming within a setting like Yeshiva University, the President of the YU Chabad Club, Danny Fordham said, “The relationship between the Lubavitcher Rebbe and Rav Soloveitchik was very fast. Many people don’t know the commonalities of hashkafa [outlook] between Chabad and Modern Orthodoxy; the concept of…making a dwelling place in this world, to be involved in this world, active in this world and not to be shaken by it.”

The co-presidents of Stern’s Chabad club, Chaya Schreiber and Eliana Hendler also offered comment. “This event showcased the relationship of two great luminaries. Each had their own different ray of light they had brought to this world, and yet they shared a unique and congenial friendship. They had such a beautiful, yet often unexplored, relationship and ‘The Rebbe and the Rav’ gave insight into it. The evening was a perfect blend of the two leaders and their people. lt is therefore only fitting that the huge success of this event was clearly displayed by the presence of so many Jews of all different outlooks gathering together in body and spirit of the evening.”