March 7, 2013

The International Rabbinic Fellowship (IRF), joins with the entire community in celebrating the upcoming 80th birthday of Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein, one of the gedolei hador- religious titans of our generation, being celebrated both here in the United States and Israel in the coming weeks and months. We note with pride that the entire slate of officers as well as many members of the IRF, were students of Rabbi Lichtenstein at some point in their lives.

Rabbi Lichtenstein is a unique figure in our communal tapestry who combines unparalleled rabbinic learning and scholarship, together with religious passion and ethical and moral virtuosity. Rabbi Lichtenstein, the heir to legacy and preeminent disciple of his illustrious father in law, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik zt”l, has been a leading intellectual thinker and leader of the Modern Orthodox and religious-Zionist community for close to five decades. His teachings, example and writings resonate with large numbers of Jews throughout the world. 

Rabbi Lichtenstein has, with great devotion and commitment, educated thousands of students, many of whom have taken up leadership positions in the rabbinate, Jewish education and Jewish communal life. His teachings and writings continue to engage, inspire and challenge generations of readers, young and old, who look to him for a passionate, serious, nuanced and thoughtful articulation of Torah principles coupled with an appreciation of “the best that has been thought and written in the general world”. 

We wish him many, many more years of good health to teach Torah and Jewish thought.