Yeshiva University and the Orthodox Union will co-host “Remembering the Rav — Celebrating the Completion of Chumash Mesoras HaRav: The Neuwirth Edition” on Sunday, October 14 from 9:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. in Yeshiva University’s Weissberg Commons. The program is free of charge and open to men and women. Part of YU’s Kollel Yom Rishon series, this special event marks the publication of the commentary on Chumash based upon the teachings of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik (known to all as “the Rav”) and will include presentations from some of the Rav’s most illustrious students. To register, go to oupress.org/remembering-the-rav/.
The program, led by Rabbi Simon Posner, Executive Editor of OU Press, will feature several prominent speakers, including a keynote address from Dr. Ari Berman, President of Yeshiva University. Other speakers include Rabbi Hershel Schachter, Rosh Yeshiva [senior teacher of Talmud] and Rosh Kollel [head of the Kollel] at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS) and Senior Posek [Halachic Decisor] at OU Kosher; Rabbi Mayer Twersky, Rosh Yeshiva at RIETS; Dr. Arnold Lustiger, the editor of Chumash Mesoras HaRav; Rabbi Menachem Genack, Rosh Yeshiva at RIETS, CEO of OU Kosher and General Editor of OU Press; and Rabbi Julius Berman, chairman of the OU Press Commission and a trustee of Yeshiva University.
The Chumash Mesoras HaRav, published by OU Press, has been a multi-year project to make Rabbi Soloveitchik’s commentary on the Torah readily accessible to readers. Compiled and edited by Dr. Arnold Lustiger, the project draws upon material from dozens of published sources in Hebrew, English and Yiddish, as well as many previously unpublished lectures and tapes of Rabbi Soloveitchik’s shiurim [discourses on Talmud and Halachic subjects].
This material is presented in concise English, often in the Rav’s own language, as a running commentary alongside the Chumash text. The Chumash Mesoras HaRav presents the Rav’s philosophical insights, homiletic interpretations and Talmudic analysis in a form that transforms them from a diverse array of sources into a timeless commentary.
Rabbi Posner says that “the completion of the Chumash Mesoras HaRav project is a pioneering event in Jewish publishing and will serve to further disseminate the Rav’s Torah. The upcoming event at Yeshiva University provides us the opportunity to give kavod [honor] to the Rav and pay public tribute to his memory.”
OU PRESS publishes quality works of Jewish scholarship, including such commentaries on the Torah as the Chumash Mesoras HaRav, Rabbi Norman Lamm’s Derashot LeDorot, Rabbi Shmuel Goldin’s Unlocking the Torah Text, and Rabbi Ari Kahn’s Echoes of Eden series.