Autograph Letter Signed, offering condolences to S.Ch. Kook upon the passing of his brother Chief Rabbi Abraham Isaac Hakohen Kook

SOLOVEITCHIK, MOSES HALEVI

New York

5 Ellul, 1935

R. Moses Soloveitchik (1876-1941)was the son of R. Chaim Halevi Soloveitchik of Brisk, (“R. Chaim Brisker”) renowned for having revolutionized the Talmudic method of analysis. His son, R. Moses, besides transmitting R. Chaim’s teachings, applied his unique methodology to develop novellae of his own. After a brief stint in the rabbinate, first in Rassein, and later in Chaslavitch, Russia, R. Moses taught Talmud in the Tachkemoni School of Warsaw. Thereafter he was appointed Rosh Yeshivah of Yeshiva R. Yitzchak Elchanan (Yeshiva University), New York, where he taught until his death. Chief Rabbi Abraham Isaac Hakohen Kook (1865-1935) had been a student of R. Chaim Soloveitchik in the famed Volozhin Yeshiva. R. Moses parted ways with his father concerning the issue of Zionism. Whereas the father had been vehemently opposed to the Zionist movement, the son was attracted to the Mizrachi or Religious Zionist movement, and was thus much closer to Rabbi Kook in terms of political ideology than to his own father. Rabbi Soloveitchik refers to the late Rabbi Kook as “the captain of the ship of Israel,” in recognition of his position of leadership in the Jewish world. Saul Chono Kook (1879-1955), younger brother of the Chief Rabbi, was a scholar and philologist. His research was published posthumously in two volumes of Iyunim u-Mechkarim. See EJ, Vol. X, col. 1187