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Correspondence

October-November 1975

Exchange with Andrew Beider about the Jewish Approach to Life Insurance (1975)

General Jewish Thought Jewish Law & Secular Law
Background Information

This letter reflects the fact that Rabbi Lamm’s appreciation for Chabad was reciprocated.

Background Information

1. Andrew Beider to R. Lamm

1. Andrew Beider to R. Lamm (Oct. 28, 1975)

1. Andrew Beider to R. Lamm (Oct. 28, 1975)

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Exchange with Arthur Sapper about the Noahide Laws and Morality (2001)

Dear Dr. Lamm: I have read your recent article, “Holocaust Compensation from the Viewpoint of Jewish Law and Morality.” The article, while forceful, left me puzzled, and I respectfully seek your explanation or clarification of a point. Your article is principally built on the mitzvah in Lev. 19:16, “You shall not stand by idly while the blood of your brother is being spilled.” From this, and also Rambam and the Talmud, you extract the point that “\[n]ations as well as individuals are enjoined to defend the defenseless....” You apply other halakhic principles, such as tzorkhei rabbim.My question is this: Which, if any, of the laws or principles relied upon in your article apply to non-Jews? I find it hard to believe that all of them do. I don’t recall anything in the seven mitzvahs of the bnei Noach that encompasses not standing by the blood of one’s brother or ‘tzorkhei rabbim.’If it is the whole point of the Jewish people that we are kadosh, separate and apart from other nations, and if that kedushah is founded on our being bound by many more mitzvot than the nations of the world, then I take it that it is contrary to the very idea of the Jewish people to impose on other nations laws that apply only to klal Yisrael.I look forward to your answer.Respectfully,Arthur G. Sapper
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Exchange with Lawrence Kobrin about Project on Talmud and Contemporary Legal Issues (1976)

Dear Rabbi Lamm: This letter is addressed to you in your role as consulting editor for Ktav on the law and ethics series. It is intended to furnish some specific examples of a line of inquiry in public discussion which we have occasionally discussed in general terms, but without specific illustration. While I am not exactly certain as to the appropriate method for following up these ideas, I wanted to share them with you. The pedagogy of Talmud is, for a variety of reasons, frequently "self-centered", in the sense that it is presented as an all inclusive and self-contained system, rather than as a jurisprudential effort to deal with ongoing business, human relations, or similar problems. The refinements of textural analysis and logical deduction frequently exclude any consideration of the actual application of legal rules to practical business for fact situations. The text of atonement and the practice of the authors of Responsa literature demonstrate that this was not the original intention of the masters of halacha. Presumably, it is only contemporary divorcement of halachic literature from practical application that leads to this result.As a result, the teaching of Talmud may frequently be unnecessarily difficult. For, if the student must be convinced that some particular discussion is important for its own sake, it might be easier to engender interest in thought where a discussion was related to a contemporaneous problem, still posed in courts and legal literature.Some recently reported decisions of the New York Court of Appeals (the highest court in this state), all of them coincidentally by a narrowly divided court, relate or may be considered analogous to matters discussed extensively in the Talmud. The fact that these problems are still current serve to demonstrate that the jurisprudential problems posed in the Talmud are still very much with us and that the solutions found there may be helpful in dealing with contemporary life, however commercial and compl…
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Exchange with Michael Tabor about Halacha, Morality, and Building a Relationship with God (1969)

Dear Rabbi Lamm, I have time just for a short note to extend to you and your family the season's greetings. This period since I saw you has truly been one of turmoil. About [redacted] whom I believe you met while you were in Israel – well, apparently she has turned out to be the exceptional student of this new sem for mature girls (Oy vey!). It is still in the balance with all the agonizing uncertainty that that involves... didn't know that a strong healthy young man like me could suffer so much emotionally from waiting for the lady of my choice. Anyway, I suppose one must have patience for the fairer sex and realise that virtue is not only on one side. She knows I am a bit eccentric and I think it is worrying her whether to take the jump of marriage. All women I suppose want security. Time will indeed tell and in the meantime we both suffer – such is life.Next September I am going to Sheffield to do a post grad diploma in education – a must here after 1972 if one wants to teach in a state school. After that I'll have to wait and see. My stay in N.Y. did not solve all my internal problems and altho' I gained something very special from my yechidus and attending the vabrengen, I still have to relate to the dilemma of my own life. I can't and don't want to shake off my secular skin and adapt an east european weltanshaung and I don't mean this is a pejorative sense. Its difficult to explain in words but thank G'd my Lubavitch friends understand to a degree otherwise I would not be faced with an unbearable either-or dilemma of identity. For the moment I am quiet and keep in the background as much as possible. I think living away in Sheffield will do me good – it will be a challenge in more ways than one and make me more aware of what I am.I received a letter today from my teacher Rav Carmel who is now in Jerusalem and has set up together with a Rabbi Horovitz a special yeshiva for western type students. He mentioned about the effects of dew years of solid learning woul…
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