A Jewish Philosophy of Man

A Lecture Series by Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik

Lecture 7: Prophetic Loneliness as the Solution to the Problem of Jewish Loneliness

Delivered February 12, 1959

Summary by Mark Smilowitz: Different people experience loneliness and aloneness differently. Some people are so preoccupied with how they impress others, with their public persona, that they lack rootedness in their own, private world. When society loses interest in such people, the resulting loneliness becomes a kind of torture, infused with despair and defeat. On the other hand, there are other people who never forget their own, private, numinous world, even as they remain committed to and even sacrifice for the outside world. If rejected by the crowd, this person remains secure in his or her unique self, confident in the special, singular message that only he or she can bring to the world. This is not loneliness but the great experience of aloneness, or what may be called prophetic loneliness. Abraham, Moses, Elijah, and all prophets experienced this aloneness, when the crowd was unwilling to receive their unique message. While loneliness for the first kind of person is paralyzing, prophetic solitude drives creativity. The prophet does not withdraw from society, but all while engaging with and giving to society he paradoxically distances himself from society, remaining in a world for himself. This dichotomy is reflected in Abraham’s description of himself as a resident and a stranger. The two kinds of people, the lonely and the alone, are manifested in two aspects of our lives, fate and destiny. When man confronts a world unsympathetic to his quest for meaningfulness and accepts defeat, that is fate. When man, in the face of such adversity, refuses to yield and asserts his own creative vision, that is destiny. We all inevitably oscillate dialectically between the two. When one measures self-esteem by accomplishment and conquest, that is majesty, but if, facing defeat, one returns to live within oneself, then majesty turns into dignity. The solution to the problem of Jewish loneliness, of the alienation of the Jew from society, is to make this transition from loneliness to prophetic solitude. The modern Jewish State is not the solution to our loneliness. In fact, it increased the loneliness of the Jew. If the Jew would cultivate dignity instead of majesty, would stop craving praise and acceptance from others and embrace his own unique destiny, many of his problems would be solved. This means changing from ivri to Yisrael, from fate to destiny. How is this Jewish uniqueness characterized? We are a covenantal community, a community of the committed, bound by obligations taken on at the dawn of our history.

00:01:16          Different kinds of people experiencing loneliness and aloneness differently

00:17:39          Prophetic loneliness

00:37:59          Fate and destiny

01:02:40          Majesty and dignity

01:12:18          The problem and solution of the alienation of the Jew from society

For Further Study: The Rav develops the concepts of fate and destiny in “Kol Dodi Dofek.” Unlike in this lecture, in “The Lonely Man of Faith” the terms dignity and majesty are almost synonymous, and the two are contrasted with redemption. The paradoxical relationship of the Jew to the outside world, being both “a stranger and a resident,” is also explored in “Confrontation.”

 << Back to Lecture 6 | Home | Proceed to Lecture 8 >>