Moshe Meiselman

Early life and education

Meiselman was born to Harry Meiselman, a dental surgeon, and Shulamit Soloveitchik, a teacher and Jewish school principal who attended New York University and Radcliffe College. On his mother's side, he is a descendant of the Soloveitchik rabbinic dynasty. His maternal grandfather was Rabbi Moshe Soloveichik and his maternal great-grandfather was Rabbi Chaim Soloveitchik, known as Reb Chaim Brisker. His mother, Shulamit, authored the book The Soloveitchik Heritage: A Daughter's Memoir (1995). Meiselman was a nephew of Rabbi Dr. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, rosh yeshiva of R.I.E.T.S., with whom, according to Meiselman, he had study sessions on a near daily basis from the time he was 18 until he was 29 years old .

Meiselman graduated from high school at the Boston Latin School and then went on to attend Harvard University (the undergraduate school which all three of Soloveitchik's children and his American grandchildren attended) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In the latter institution, he studied under Dr. Donald Werner Anderson and earned his doctorate in mathematics in 1967 with the thesis "The Operation Ring for Connective K-Theory". While Meiselman's sole formal education (including high school through post-graduate school) took place at secular institutions, rather than yeshivot, Meiselman's students report that he was strong in his haredi viewpoint even at this young age. They report that he would often debate teachers of philosophy on points of religion, stressing his strong religious views in an extremely secular environment.

Career

Meiselman began his career teaching mathematics at City University of New York. After his marriage in 1971, he became a maggid shiur at Beis Medrash L'Torah in Skokie. Afterward, he taught at Yeshivas Brisk (Brisk Rabbinical College) in Chicago, headed for a time by his uncle, Rabbi Ahron Soloveichik. In 1977 he moved to the West Coast and founded the Yeshiva University of Los Angeles (YULA), opening separate high school programs for boys and girls, a yeshivah gedolah, and a kolel. He also served as a posek (arbiter of Jewish law) for the local community.

In 1982, having built up enrollment to nearly 400 male and female students in YULA's various divisions, Meiselman moved to Israel to open a yeshiva for American students, together with co-rosh yeshiva Rabbi Doniel Lehrfield (Rabbi Lehrfield and several other faculty members subsequently left to start another yeshiva, Bais Yisroel). He named the new school Toras Moshe after his grandfather, Moshe. He selected Rabbis Michel Shurkin and Moshe Twersky, both close students of Rabbi Soloveitchik, to head the teaching staff. In 2011, Meiselman reported about his yeshiva that "We have 96 boys in the beis medrash and 44 in the kollel, and almost all of our kollel yungerleit are home-grown".

Meiselman is one of several grandchildren of Rabbi Moshe Soloveichik who have established yeshivas in Israel, perhaps the most famous being Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein, son-in-law of Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, who established Yeshivat Har Etzion in the late 1960s. Yeshivat Reshit, a popular yeshiva in Israel for American students in Beit Shemesh, was established by the Rabbis Marcus, also descendants of Rabbi Moshe Soloveitchik. Unlike these other two yeshivas, however, Toras Moshe discourages its students from attending Yeshiva University, and in fact virtually none of its students continue on to Yeshiva University.

Meiselman is the author of several books and numerous magazine articles. His Jewish Woman in Jewish Law (1978) sparked much discussion among authors and feminists for his traditional Jewish response to feminism. Additionally, Meiselman has authored Tiferes Tzvi, a commentary to the Rambam, as well as numerous articles on Talmudic study and thought in Hebrew.

Torah, Chazal and Science

Meiselman's 2013 book, Torah, Chazal and Science, promotes the theory that all unqualified scientific statements of the Talmudic sages were divinely inspired and are therefore immutable: "All of Chazal’s (the Talmudic sages') definitive statements are to be taken as absolute fact [even] outside the realm of halakhah (Jewish law)". The flip side of this thesis, and another major theme of the book, is that modern science is transitory and unreliable compared to the divine wisdom of the sages.

The Holocaust

Following the opinion of some Haredi thinkers in the area of Holocaust theology, Meiselman has argued that the Holocaust was the result of Jewish cultural assimilation in Western Europe in the early twentieth century. He writes that "the turning away from the status of an 'am ha-nivhar, a chosen people, and the frightening rush toward assimilation were, according to the rules that govern Jewish destiny, the real causes for the Holocaust".

The State of Israel

Meiselman's mother was active with Zionist causes, was member of the Zionist Youth Movement, and was "the only woman on the executive board of Yardenia, a national Polish Zionist organization". Meiselman, in contrast, subscribes to Haredi views regarding the State of Israel and the Israel Defence Forces. He has stated that it is forbidden for a yeshiva student to join the Israeli army, and has even criticized the Nachal Haredi, stating in an interview that Nachal Haredi has "not been successful in maintaining commitment to Torah."

In 2013, Meiselman sat on the dais at a rally in NY against conscription of yeshiva students into the Israeli army. Both Satmar Rebbes were involved in the planning of, and also sat at the dais at, this rally.

Modern Orthodoxy

In commenting on Modern Orthodox innovations with regard to women, Meiselman has stated that "when it comes to the rabbis and the people who are at the forefront of pushing for these changes so that they can 'update' Orthodoxy to conform with today’s 'progressive' cultural norm ... [the] common denominator between nearly all of them is that they are largely ignorant of halacha and devoid of serious Torah scholarship. If your knowledge of Torah and halacha are limited, then you are not limited by halacha. One is never confined by things that one doesn't know and never learned!"

As stated by one of its faculty members, "Toras Moshe strongly opposes Y.U. Yeshiva University and actively tries to dissuade its students to enroll there."

Personal

Meiselman is married to Rivkah Leah Eichenstein.