Excerpt from Rabbi Marc Angel: https://www.jewishideas.org/article/rabbi-joseph-b-soloveitchik-judaism-and-modernity (emphasis mine)

Rabbi Soloveitchik emphasized the Torah's focus on this-worldy concerns. "The ideal of halakhic man is the redemption of the world not via a higher world but via the world itself, via the adaptation of empirical reality to the ideal patterns of halakha. ... A lowly world is elevated through the halakha to the level of a divine world" (Halakhic Man, pp. 37–38).

Whereas the universal homo religiosus believes that the lower spiritual domain of this world must yearn for the higher spiritual realms, halakhic man declares that "the higher longs and pines for the lower." God created human beings to live in this world; in so doing, He endowed human life in this world with dignity and meaning.

Halakha can be actualized only in the real world. "Halakhic man's most fervent desire is the perfection of the world under the dominion of righteousness and loving-kindness--the realization of the a priori, ideal creation, whose name is Torah (or halakha), in the realm of concrete life" (Halakhic Man, p. 94). The halakhic life, thus, is necessarily committed to this-worldly activism; the halakhic personality is devoted to the creation of a righteous society.
The halakha is not confined to sanctuaries, but "penetrates into every nook and cranny of life." Halakha is in the home, the marketplace, the banquet hall, the street, the office--everywhere. As important as the synagogue is, it does not occupy the central place in halakhic Judaism. Halakha is too vast and comprehensive to be confined to a synagogue.

Rabbi Soloveitchik argues that non-halakhic Judaism erred grievously in putting the temple at the heart of religion. "The halakha, the Judaism that is faithful to itself ... which brings the Divine Presence into the midst of empirical reality, does not center about the synagogue or study house. These are minor sanctuaries. The true sanctuary is the sphere of our daily, mundane activities, for it is there that the realization of the halakha takes place" (Halakhic Man, pp. 94-5).

Consequently, halakhic Judaism is realistic, idealistic and demanding. Halakha is concerned with every moment, with every place. Its sanctity fills the universe.

Halakha is unequivocally committed to righteous, ethical life. The Rav points out that the great sages of halakha have always been known for their lofty ethical standards. The halakha demands high respect for the dignity of others. "To recognize a person is not just to identify him physically. It is more than that: it is an act of identifying him existentially, as a person who has a job to do, that only he can do properly. To recognize a person means to affirm that he is irreplaceable. To hurt a person means to tell him that he is expendable, that there is no need for him. The halakha equated the act of publicly embarrassing a person with murder" ("The Community," p. 16).

The ethical demands of halakha are exacting. One's personal life must be guided by halakhic teachings in every situation, in every relationship. The halakhic worldview opposes mystical quietism which is tolerant of pain and suffering. On the contrary, halakhic Judaism "wants man to cry out aloud against any kind of pain, to react indignantly to all kinds of injustice or unfairness" ("Redemption, Prayer, Talmud Torah," p. 65; see also, U-Vikkashtem mi-Sham, p. 16).

Questions for Reflection:
1. Where do you most feel Hashem in halachic life outside shul?
2. What area of your life needs more halachic consciousness?

Rabbi Avraham Kook (Eder HaYakar pg. 48)
This is the natural quality of Judaism in its purity—when we do not try, through foreign and coercive forces, to imprison the spirit. The entire great development of the many detailed laws and customs—even the stringencies that Israel voluntarily took upon themselves—all of these are expressions of the inner love between the people of Israel and God, for the sake of God their Lord, for His Torah, for their national soul, and for their land—bound together as one, inseparable forever. This inner love and these holy yearnings seek to expand wherever they can, and the most natural expansion for Israel is to imprint the seal of this love and spiritual delight—these feelings of honor and friendship toward God—upon the very pathways of life. This is the subtle, overarching feeling of the nation as a whole, from beginning to end, and it continues to shape us for as long as the national spirit remains healthy and strong within us, resting always upon the fresh and vibrant part of the nation: the passionate and great ones of each generation. The Torah and all its commandments, in all their branches and sub-branches, in life, in study, and in deed—he sees in them one great divine song, a song of friendship and love. Every mitzvah, every halacha, has its own unique musical quality, to which Knesset Yisrael listens and upon which it delights. It blossoms, exults, rejoices, and sings. All we need do is remove the blockage from the ears of our children, clear away the thorns surrounding the supreme rose—and the song will surge within their hearts, lifting their souls with that natural exaltation which has always uplifted all who have truly sensed and cultivated the true nature of their Judaism.

Questions for Reflection:
1. When has halakha in your life felt like love, beauty, or connection rather than obligation or pressure, and what made that experience different?
2. Rav Kook says the “song” of the Jewish soul is always present, but sometimes our ears are blocked. What blocks you personally from feeling joy, warmth, or inner meaning in halachic life, and what might help remove even one of those blockages?

Rav Yitzchak Hutner (Igros v'Kisavim §94)
I feel obligated to tell you that, in my opinion, these very struggles that you discuss in your letter stem from a mistaken perception regarding the matter at hand. The general impression that emerges from your words is that you take it as a given, that a "secular career" is a "double life." Let me tell you clearly that I could never agree in any way with a "double life."
If someone rents one room in a home in order to live there as a resident, and also rents an additional room in a hotel in order to live there as a guest, certainly he is living a ‘double life.’ But someone who rents an apartment consisting of two rooms is living a broad life, not a double life.
I recall that once I visited the hospital of Dr. (Moshe) Wallach [note: founder of Shaarei Tzedek Hospital in Jerusalem], may he live and be well, in Jerusalem. I saw him approaching a patient who was about to enter the operating room, and he asked the patient for his mother’s name so that he could pray for him before beginning the operation. When I later related this incident to one of the distinguished and unique great Torah sages of Jerusalem, of blessed memory, he remarked: ‘How much must we envy this Jew, who has such a great opportunity to serve as a sanctified vesself for the honor of Heaven!’
Tell me honestly, my beloved and dear one: when a doctor, about to perform surgery, says a chapter of Tehillim for the recovery of his patient — is that a ‘double life’?
And you, my beloved and precious one, Heaven forbid that you should see yourself through a distorted mirror of 'dual lives.' ‘Whoever lengthens "echad," his days and years are lengthened. (Berachos 13b)’ All your life must be an expression of “lengthening the echad” — and not duality... A large number of scattered dots, placed one beneath the other, certainly creates multiplicity. But that very same multitude of dots, when they are arranged around one central point, forms a unified circle.
This, then, is the overarching duty of your life: to set the One at the center of your life. Once that is done, you need not fear “duality” at all. Every new point you acquire will only broaden the circle, but the unity will never be displaced.

Questions for Reflection:
1. Do you ever feel like you are living a “double life”: one religious life and one “everything else” life? What creates that feeling, and what language or mindset might help shift that toward a sense of one unified life?
2. Rav Hutner uses the image of many dots forming not chaos but a circle when they are arranged around one center. What are the “dots” in your life — family, work, learning, community, personal passions — and how might they form a circle rather than feel scattered?

Rav Tzadok HaKohen Rabinowitz (Tzidkas HaTzadik 177)
In every matter there is PaRDeS. Peshat is the actual performance of the Torah and mitzvot in concrete deed. Remez is the inner hints within the heart that are formed through those very actions—like the teaching that “the deaf person gestures and is understood by gesture” (Gittin 59a), for the hint points to the intention in his heart that he cannot bring into outward expression. So too, all avodah is a hint toward what is in the heart. For example, the mitzvah of giving tzedakah in practice, and its inner hint in the heart is to become attached to the attribute of Divine mercy, to have compassion upon others and to bestow goodness upon them.
Derash is the intention from the side of wisdom in the mind—to know what new understanding of Divine wisdom and knowledge of God is born in one’s intellect through this deed. And once a person attains these three—deed, heart, and mind—then “the tools of action complete,” and the heart desires, and the eyes perceive the wisdom of the matter;
then he merits Sod, as it says (Kiddushin 41a), “To a good person they let him taste the fruit of his deeds in this world.” This “taste,” like “Taste and see…” is called Sod, because it is something impossible to explain to another, just like taste cannot be described to someone else—each one experiences according to his own deeds, as Chazal said (Avot d’Rabbi Natan ch. 37), “Two eat from the same bowl, yet each tastes according to his deeds.” Since taste is not the same for everyone, it is called Sod—something that truly cannot be told at all; for anything that can be told becomes known to the other, and how can that be called a secret of God, “Sod Hashem li’reiav,” or “His secret is with the upright,” if it were fully communicable? Rather, it is something revealed only to the one who merits it, and cannot be revealed to another. This is the “tasting”—each one tastes according to his portion. And they said (Bereishit Rabbah 49; Tanchuma Vayera 6) that in the end this was given to the prophets, as it says “He reveals His secret…” for “fear” is in the heart, as the Gemara says (Yoma 72b) on “and the heart was not,” meaning the essence is the heart. ...But in the end, it is for the prophets, meaning those who encompass all three, as Chazal said (Shabbat 92a): only one who is wise in mind, mighty in conquering his inclination in heart, and wealthy in good deeds—corresponding also to jealousy, lust, and honor: “wealthy” meaning satisfied with his portion and not jealous; “mighty” against lust; and “honor,” for “the wise shall inherit honor.”

Question for Reflection:
Choose one area of mitzvah-life: where do you experience it today only as action, and how might you nurture it—step by step—so that it shapes your heart, deepens your understanding, and eventually becomes something you personally ‘taste’ and feel alive with?

In this powerful section of Letter 18, Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch diagnoses a deep spiritual crisis in Jewish life. He argues that much of the confusion, weakness, and distortion in modern Judaism arose because Jews stopped encountering Torah as a living source of guidance for real life and instead allowed outsiders — philosophers, academics, cultural critics, Christian thinkers, secularizers, and even well-meaning Jewish reformers — to define Judaism’s meaning for them. Some reduced Judaism to philosophy, making mitzvot merely symbolic tools for intellectual development. Others reduced it to ritual religion, limiting Judaism to prayer, synagogue life, and holidays. Still others treated it as an antiquated framework that could be modernized by discarding its binding authority. Against all of these, Rav Hirsch insists that salvation lies not in importing foreign categories, apologetics, or external ideologies, but in returning directly to the original sources — Torah, Talmud, and Chazal — and allowing Judaism to speak for itself as a comprehensive law of life, shaping thought, behavior, education, ethics, society, and identity from within.

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (The Nineteen Letters, Letter 18)
There is one way to salvation; — where the sin was committed the atonement must begin, — and this one way is, to forget the inherited prejudices and opinions concerning Judaism; to go back to the sources of Judaism, to Bible, Talmud, and Midrash; to read, study, and comprehend them in order to live them; to draw from them the teachings of Judaism concerning God, the world, mankind, and Israel, according to history and precept; to know Judaism out of itself; to learn from its own utterances its science of life. Schools for Jews! The young saplings of your people should be reared as Jews, trained to become sons and daughters of Judaism, as you have recognized and comprehended and learned to respect and love it as the law of your life. The language of the Bible and the language of the land should be theirs; in both they should be taught to think; their heart should be taught to feel, their mind to think; the Scriptures should be their book of law for life, and they should be able to comprehend life through their word. But the seekers after knowledge will go back to the ancient fountains of Judaism, Bible and Talmud, and the one effort will be to obtain the concept of life out of Judaism and to comprehend Judaism as the law of life, and this effort will lead to the transposing of that which holds the theory of truth and life into actual, practical truth and life, in accordance with the old adage, now, alas, nearly forgotten, ללמוד וללמד לשמור ולעשות, ‘to learn and to teach, to keep and to do.’

Closing Reflection
Rav Hirsch insists that the renewal of Jewish spirit begins by returning to Torah itself, learning it deeply, and letting it speak on its own terms. Where in my Jewish life have I perhaps allowed outside narratives, assumptions, or habits to define what Judaism is — and what might change if I let Torah speak to me directly, honestly, and proudly?