Rabbi J.B. Soloveichik in his Five Addresses clearly states that “separatist Orthodoxy” would disappear and only MO will survive. “Jewry and Judaism throughout the world” depended on the survival of this movement. Rabbi Soloveichik did not believe that he was merely helping a segment of Orthodox Jewry — he held that “the future of Torah in America” depends on following his approach. He held that the “separatist” Orthodox will die out and only YU and MO will survive. He held America was too strong for the real, pure Orthodoxy. Those who insisted on continuing the “old style” Orthodoxy would, he said, be come nothing but tourist attractions and die out eventually. What cannot be understated are the words of Rav Soloveichik, “secular culture . . . . AS LONG AS ONE CAN LIVE WITHOUT IT SO MUCH THE BETTER FOR THE SPIRIT”. The traditional Ultra-Orthodoxy (Rav Soloveichik refers to them as “isolationist” (sic) Orthodox, or “extreme” (sic) Orthodox) would theoretically be the best choice. But in America, it can’t survive. “Tourist attractions” he says Chareidim would end up. Clearly he was 100% mistaken.
And it was that which he said justified “Modern Orthodoxy” – survival, nothing else. If these words seem a bit difficult to understand today, you must appreciate them within the context of the prevailing secular social attitude during the time they were said, the early 1960’s. Many people were dazzled by the “new social and economic order” and even frightened about the future of Torah in America. The typical alter litvishe water carrier didn’t seem to fit in to the picture of what they imagined to be the technologically fueled, fast-paced, high-educated America.
Modern Orthodoxy was created as a response to a problem. The problem: The new world. America. Things will be different there. America is not the place for traditional Torah Orthodoxy. In the words of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveichik: “we would be enveloped by a new economic order. The lion’s share of Jewry would be centered in the Western world, and society would be based on science, where “the sun and the moon and the eleven stars” will radiate scientific learning and technology; where every scientific discovery will be publicized in the newspapers as the greatest sensation’ where all professions will be linked to higher education . . .it was [therefore] forbidden to rely on a continuation of the status-quo . . . great changes were about to occur in Jewish life for which we would have to be prepared.” (Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveichik, Five Addresses, p.31) “There is secular culture, great and powerful technology creating wonders and changing the foundations of our life . . . This secular culture entails destructive elements, many negative and perverse aspects; it may be a blessing and a curse simultaneously, and thus AS LONG AS ONE CAN LIVE WITHOUT IT SO MUCH THE BETTER FOR THE SPIRIT – [but] finally we will have to relate to it.
This was the Modern Orthodox mind-set in the early 1960’s. Ultra-Orthodoxy will be swallowed up by the all-too-powerful American culture, and the “new type of Talmid Chacham”, the secularly educated, religious Zionist will “conquer” the new world. (“Conquest” is a word often used in Rav Soloveichik’s lectures). That was then. Before long, the tune began to change. Yeshivos, chareidi-style yeshivos flourished and grew. Kolleim, yes, Kolleleim, where married men with families would “shut themselves behind walls” and spend their entire day immersed in Torah, began to spring up all over the country. Ultra-Orthodox Kiruv organizations were succeeding in attracting even the most Americanized youths. People laughed at Rav Aharon Kotler when he said that American students would be willing to go to Yeshiva full time with no college. Now look at who’s laughing at whom. Where we used to see articles announcing the pending death of “ultra orthodoxy”, we saw, in the 1980’s, articles by such Modern Orthodox spokesmen as Rabbi Dr. Emanuel Rackman, of Fifth Avenue Synagogue on Manhattan and later Bar Ilan University in Israel, decrying the spirit of “Ultra Orthodox Triumphalism”. When the ArtScroll series of English Torah classics came out, we saw an article, I believe it was in Tradition magazine, complaining about how ArtScroll, by using good English and high quality production, gives the false impression that they are really “Modern”, when in reality they are “ultra orthodox” in disguise.