oa Joseph B. Soloveitchik’s ontotheology

The present essay deals with the thought of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. The essay starts with biographical information on Soloveitchik and a short characterization of his mitnagdic background. It continues with a discussion of Soloveitchik’s ontotheological interpretation of the divine names ehyeh, ehyeh asher ehyeh, and the tetragrammaton. The discussion deals with Soloveitchik’s four claims on the matter, viz.: (1) the God of Abraham, Isaak and Jakob is the ens necessarium; (2) everything that exists is dependent on the reality of His existence; (3) the divine names under discussion refer to God’s simplicitas and singularitas. The latter is taken, among other things, as an indication of God’s incompatibility with all other things in reality, since apart from God nothing in reality can be attributed with necessary existence, comprising and maintaining it all. 4. divine singularity implies divine isolation vis-à-vis everything that exists, for no living thing can live in the proximity of God.