[Avodah] RYBS: Sources for "Lonely Man of Faith"

[Yitzchak Schaffer]

On 09/27/2011 04:57, Efraim Yawitz wrote:
> I was hoping people would understand that I was bothered by the very
> fact that RYBS would have based his most famous essay on Jewish thought
> on Christian thinkers without even mentioning the fact.  From Brill, it
> seems that the ideas were practically copied right out of books by
> Brunner and Barth.  Does anyone else have trouble with this?
>

Well look at R' Saadia, he followed faithfully (well maybe not) in the 
Kalamic tradition. To say nothing of Rambam and Aristotle. Jewish 
philosophy has historically been informed by non-Jewish philosophy to a 
great extent. R' SR Hirsch was against this at least in theory, and did 
criticize the Rambam for it. The Rambam writes in the Moreh that the 
philosophic tradition was actually an esoteric Jewish tradition that was 
lost, so I suppose Rambam would deflect RSRH's attack that way.

In any case, RSRH wrote in 19 Letters that Judaism should be developed 
from within, organically. From the style of Horeb it seems he meant from 
the Chumash and the mitzvos themselves. Seems like RYBS also attempted 
this in his Brisker philosophy, although as you mention he was 
well-versed in general philosophy and wove it into his own thought.

-- 
Yitzchak Schaffer