Between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik stz"l, would annually deliver a 2-3 hour discourse at the Kinus Teshuvah (Repentance Convocation) sponsored by the Rabbinical Council of America. In his classic work Al Hateshuvah (On Repentance), Rabbi Pinchas Peli summarized many of the earlier discourses from this series. This volume is a summary of the subsequent lectures. Rabbi Soloveitchik, one of the greatest Halakhic minds of the twentieth century, has left a remarkable legacy of public lectures. Among the most popular of venues for these lectures was the Kinus Teshuvah, where the Rav would weave halakhah and homiletics so compellingly that the line between them blurred and often disappeared entirely. Presented in Yiddish, these discourses (Teshuvah Derashot) combined halakhic depth with emotional power, leaving an enduring imprint on all who attended. Dr. Arnold Lustiger has organized the Teshuvah Derashot topically, from the pre-Rosh Hashanah Slihot prayers through the Yom Kippur Avodah and concluding Ne'ilah services. He has included Biblical, Talmudic and Midrashic sources. He provides cross-references, with citations from Peli's On Repentance as well as from Rabbi Soloveitchik's written works that address and amplify important themes in these lectures in different and often greater detail. With the publication of this book, an audience anxious to see more of Rabbi Soloveitchik's thoughts in print can once again appreciate use of the definite article when his students and followers refer to him simply as "the Rav".
by Arnold Lustiger