Joseph B. Soloveitchik - Early Years, Education, and Immigration

Early Years, Education, and Immigration

Soloveitchik was educated in the traditional manner at a Talmud Torah, an elementary yeshiva, and by private tutors, as his parents realized his great mental powers. According to a curriculum vitae written and signed in his own hand, in 1922 he graduated from the liberal arts `Gymnasium' in Dubno. Thereafter he entered in 1924 the Free Polish University in Warsaw where he spent three terms, studying political science. In 1926 he came to Berlin, Germany and entered the Friedrich Wilhelm University. He passed the examination for supplementary subjects at the German Institute for Studies by Foreigners and was then given full matriculation at the University. He took up studies in philosophy, economics and Hebrew subjects, simultaneously maintaining a rigorous schedule of intensive Talmud study.

According to the CV, among his "highly honored" teachers in university, "Geheimrat", were Professor Dr. Heinrich Maier (1867–1933) and Professor Dr. Max Dessoir, along with Professor Dr. Eugen Mittwoch and Professor Dr. Ludwig Bernhard. He studied the work of European philosophers, and was a lifelong student of neo-Kantian thought.

He wrote his Ph.D. thesis on the epistemology and metaphysics of the German philosopher Hermann Cohen. Contrary to most biographies, which erroneously state that in 1931 he received his degree, he actually passed his oral doctor's examination on July 24, 1930, but graduated with a doctorate only on December 19, 1932. Documents exist to support this assertion, possessed and publicized by the late Manfred Lehmann.

In 1931, he married Tonya Lewit (1904–1967), who had earned a Ph.D. in Education from Jena University.

During his years in Berlin, Soloveitchik became a close disciple of Rabbi Hayyim Heller, who had established an institute for advanced Jewish Studies from an Orthodox perspective in the city. He also made the acquaintance of other young scholars pursuing a similar path to his own. One such figure was Rabbi Yitzchok Hutner who would become the rosh yeshiva of the Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin also in Brooklyn, New York. Both of them developed a system of thought that bridged the Eastern European way of traditional scholarship with the new forces of modernity in the Western World. Among the other personalities with whom he came into contact were Professor Alexander Altmann, Rabbi Dr.Yehiel Yaakov Weinberg, Rector of the Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary, and Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz.