Retrospective Remarks on Choosing a Career
As outgoing head of Yeshiva University, the seminary that ordains the vast majority of modern Orthodox rabbis, Rabbi Lamm has had a huge influence on the leadership of traditional Judaism. He has authored several books, including his two-volume Seventy Faces: Articles of Faith: ...rabbi in town. His immediate reaction was, “You’re Orthodox – and so young?” My reply was, “Sir, Orthodoxy is not a gerontological disease.” Much has happened since then. Rabbis, even traditional ones, were acculturated, and young rabbis appeared on the scene – many of whom accomplished worlds. Much more needs to be done to heal the communal sicknesses that plague us and seem unredeemable, even fatal – to all except real rabbis who never give up, who are reconciled to Herculean efforts, even if they yield only modest results. The effort itself is ennobling and makes all the difficulties of genuine spiritual leadership worth all the frustrations and disappointments that seem indigenous to the profession. Why? Because the rabbinate is not solely a “profession”; it is, much more accurately, a “calling,” a vision, a destiny. It was, and is, all worthwhile."My mother's father, and his ancestors before him, for generations and generations, were rabbanim, rabbis, and it never occurred to me to exclude the rabbinate from my future.”As a young man, I struggled with my choice of career. Was it to be chemistry or the rabbinate? Psychiatry or the rabbinate? Law or the rabbinate? Cartooning or the rabbinate? The only constant in all my deliberations was the rabbinate.Indeed, the rabbinate was in my blood—or perhaps in my genes. My mother’s father, and his ancestors before him, for generations and generations, were rabbanim, rabbis, and it never occurred to me to exclude the rabbinate from my future.But more than genetics, it was intellectually attractive and theologically necessary. My life was drawn to Torah, even though other disciplines beckoned as well. I knew all the disadvantages of this partic…
