Book | Seeking His Presence: Conversations with Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein

By Rav Haim Sabato, originally in hebrew, Mevakshei Panekha: Sichot im Ha-Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, In Quest of Your Presence

Translated by Binyamin Shalom

"These wide-ranging conversations cover hours of discussions between two Torah scholars who come from different backgrounds, yet share the ability to consider the complexity of life [...] Among the topics addressed in the book are the religious experience of Torah study, the relationship to universal and humanist ideals, attitudes to Zionism and the State of Israel, feminism and Torah study for women, relationships with the secular community, and the renewal of Jewish law in the Jewish State." - Back cover

"Words of sages in peace are heard" and the many hours of conversation invested in this book bring together the worlds and views of Rabbi Sabato and Rabbi Lichtenstein in the moderation and depth that characterizes a sincere encounter between true sages. The unique power of the encounter stems from the open and spontaneous discourse, which touches on the most delicate nuances of the life of the believing person in particular and of the human and religious existence in the modern age and in the Western world in general. The cultural and intellectual spaces dominated by the discussion in the book are vast and full of grandeur. The Jewish-Torah side lives in wonderful harmony with universal content, in a way that only giants of spirit touching both ends can contain. The point of view of Rabbi Lichtenstein, son-in-law and disciple of Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, who immigrated from the United States in his adulthood and whose religious world is based on the Brisk tradition in Lithuania, meets the views of Rabbi Sabato who immigrated from Cairo as a child, and whose religious world is rooted in the tradition of Aleppo in Syria and developed within Israeli yeshivas.  To order >>