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Correspondence

April-May 1976

Exchange about Faith, Theodicy, and God's Plan (1976)

Faith Theodicy
Background Information

Rabbi Lamm often remarked that the vast majority of philosophical questions he received from congregants were about theodicy. This is a poignant example.

Background Information

1. Correspondent D to R. Lamm

1. Correspondent D to R. Lamm (Apr. 28, 1976)

1. Correspondent D to R. Lamm (April 28, 1976)

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Correspondence

Exchange about Divine Authorship of the Torah (1971)

Dear Rabbi Lamm, שליט"א, My name is [redacted], and I am 22 years of age. Until approximately 3 months ago my השקפה was, by Jewish Orthodox standards, a rather "healthy" one. (I was planning to go into חינוך.) At that time I decided to devote a portion of my day to the study of תנ"ך, a לימוד which I had neglected since my elementary school days. This proved to be a painful experience. For as I read, my belief in the doctrine of תורה מן השמים steadily diminished.My problem is essentially this: If תורה was, in fact, divinely inspired, why is there barely any indication in the text itself? Let me illustrate this with an example: If a certain poem has traditionally been attributed to a brilliant and profound thinker, I would naturally expect to find a lot of brilliance and profundity in the poem itself. Now, if the poem turned out to be shallow and primitive, (i.e. I did not deem it brilliant or profound) I would have severe doubts about the authenticity of the tradition I received. Well, a book which was allegedly authored by the Supreme Intelligence should ק"ו בן בנו של ק"ו be rife with attestations to this fact. And yet, turning to the תורה, I fail to find anything of the sort.What אמונה I do possess is derived from three sources:1) גימטריא, נוטריקון and other scriptural phenomena. (I am referring, not to the wild mathematical games some חסידים play, but to those phenomena which, I feel, simply cannot be attributed to coincidence).2) Prophecies in the תורה which were later realized.3) An intuition that certain פסוקים and events in תורה have esoteric meaning.I hope you will be kind enough to advise me as to what course of action I ought to take.Thanking you in advance,Sincerely Yours,[redacted]
Faith

Correspondence

Exchange about Faith and Feeling Emptiness (1976)

Dear Rabbi Lamm, Two things are true – 1) I'm not as they say from the letter writers and 2) I wanted to wait a bit before writing you in order to be able to base my observation on a little more that first impression and intuition. This letter has been in the writing since I got here – this time I'm going to give it a real go and hope to actually send you something. My life is so one dimensional here that it shouldn't be hard to know what to write about and yet everything gets so muddled and complicated when looked at closely. School is the center an basically the only element of my life. The learning is excellent – the course of study has been very well thought out and the program includes enough variety both in terms of material covered and the inevitable slant perspective on it by the individual teachers that I don't get bored or find the classes tedious. Also I've been very fortunate – my roommate is a wonderful person and we've become close friends. As it happens she's also my havrusa and has helped me adjust to the learning as well as the living here. Actually we're a threesome – a third friend completes our group. We share a lot and right now a major part of our energy is involved with the developing of a puppet theatre. It began as a Purim spiel but is now taking on much greater proportion. I'll let you know just how successful we are in this endeavor as time goes on. Time has become an interesting phenomenon to me – in so many ways I feel as though I've been here always and yet I feel as though the time is passing by very quickly. At first I was on something on a high – everything was perfect – it was the best of all possible worlds 2/2 collide. That of course could never last and was followed by an inevitable down period. I think right now things are stabilizing out and I'll be able to live on more neutral ground. I've been bombarded with such a multitude of concepts and the attempt to comprehend them and their subtleties and their subsequent relevance to…
Faith

Correspondence

Exchange about Theodicy, Sickness, and Appreciating Life (1976)

Dear Uncle Norman, I received your letter and thank you for answering. Over the weekend I read over some of your sermons you sent. I specifically enjoyed the one about – "Till a hundred & twenty." Today however we received a most interesting piece of work – a letter from Shelley to "The Master of Universe" and you answer בשמו. It really קלע למטרה, and I have a few more question בנדון.1) How come G-d doesn't stop the suffering at a certain point & make it well again? Why can't He make the condition better to show His greatness & to לחזק the person's sick parent or relative or friend and he prays to G-d constantly (הרי זוהי המטרה) and even has a נצוץ של תקוה, and the end this sick person dies –הרי שבסופו של דבר, אמונתו של אדם נקטעת באיזשהו מקום. האדם סמך על הקב"ה שיעזר, התפלל בתמידות וסופו שלא נתקבלו תפילתיו. והוא אמנם אמר ומודה שהכל לטובה אך סך הכל זהו דבר שקשה מאד להבין בעצם מיואש זה ובמקום מסוים הוא מאד מאובזם וזה עלול בהחלט לערער את האמונה. אם כך אז הוא התקרב למשך התקופה שסמל ואחר כך מתרחק שוב מהקב"ה, או באופן קיצוני יותר.2) Why על חשבון the sick person? Why does he have to be sick & die if G-d wants to לקרב the other people to him? Does he get repayed בעולם הבא?Anyway, those are my questions for now. I would appreciate if you'd answer them when you have some time.Israel is beautiful obviously. There is "יריד שבוע הספר העברי" now and of course I spotted your book on one of the counters.Last night, ל"ג בעמר, the whole country was lit up with מדורות, even Shelli and Mommy made one. I went out to the Chasidic Festival and has a great time. Today, however, we just stayed home.Okay, that all for now. להשתמע!Wish you were all here.Bye, Love,YaelP.S. I notice that I should've written in Hebrew. It would've been more מובן & in only one language.
Theodicy