Chapter Ten. Religiosity After Cognition: All-Inclusive Consciousness

This chapter will specify the range of implications entailed by halakhic-ideal cognition and its meanings, addressing also the critical consciousness developed by Halakhic Man. Rabbi Joseph Baer Soloveitchik consistently emphasizes that, for Halakhic Man, no experience is independently valuable. He seeks to distance the experience of Halakhic Man from the classic experience of the homi religiosi. The perception of God adopted by Halakhic Man requires a different type of worship. Halakhic Man serves his Maker with pure halakhic thought, precise cognition, and clear logic. The genuine antithesis emerging is that between the Jewish, observant homo religious, and Halakhic Man. R. Soloveitchik clarifies that, for Halakhic Man, divine worship is worship in the mind, an endless process of speculation anchored in an ideal halakhic-normative analysis Worshipping God through thought, and the implications of this worship at the teleological-moral and the judicial-aesthetic levels, are exclusive to Halakhic Man.Keywords: divine worship; God; Halakhic Man; halakhic-ideal cognition; homi religiosi; Jewish; Rabbi Joseph Baer Soloveitchik