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Correspondence

January-February 1990

Exchange with Jordan Hoffman about Rabbinic Law and "Faith and Doubt" (1990)

Faith Talmudic Analysis
Background Information

This exchange illustrates Rabbi Lamm’s openness and responsiveness to members of the broader community, even while serving as president of Yeshiva University.

Background Information

1. Jordan Hoffman to R. Lamm

1. Jordan Hoffman to R. Lamm (1990)

1. Jordan Hoffman to R. Lamm (Jan. 1, 1990)

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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 Principles of Faith and the Dichotomy Between Mitzvah and Aveirah (1969)

Dear Rabbi Lamm לאי"ט, I have not had the pleasure of meeting you although I am an avid reader of your thought provoking articles. My name is [redacted], and I teach at [redacted]. You will probably recall that [redacted] mentioned me in his recent letter to you – although he did not do too good a job of presenting my views. There are a number of favours which I would like to ask of you. I realize that you are very busy and that asking you for seme of your time is an imposition but I think that you are probably better able to help me than most people, so I hope that you will bear with me and if at all possible take the time to answer the following few questions.Am I right in assumung that current philosophical thought rejects the possibility of proving the עקרי אמונה which ראשונים like רמב"ם and חובת הלבבות try to prove? My own inclination has always been towards the Kuzari and the Ramban (Shemos 3:13) who seem to reject the need and possibly also the possibility of proving these points. I am very eager to know the grounds on which these proofs are rejected. Am I right in thinking that the main basis is the impossibility or knowing "das Dingan Sich” which, if I understand Kent's term correctly means that we can only grasp things through our own experiences and consequently cannot have any understanding of the Ribono shel Olom. This seems to me to be so obvious that I do net see how the ראשונים could have overlooked it. As a matter of fact it seems to me that in essence this is what the רמב"ם himself says when he argues with Aristotelos proofs of Kadmus and formulates his theseis concerning ידיעה of השית. If this is so does this not logically extend to any and all conjecture about the רשב"ע including his אחדות and lack of הגשמה which, I believe the רמב"ם considers as proven.In the most recent TRADITION there is a book review by Edith Wyschegred in which she quotes two opinions of the אברבנאל. One verbatim ... "In view of the strength . ..." and the other on page 140…
Faith

Correspondence

Exchange with L. Carmell about "Faith and Doubt" (1967)

Dear Rabbi Lamm, The Spring-Summer issue of Tradition has just reached me. May I congratulate you on your lucid and a penetrating article "Faith and Doubt". As usual, if I may say so, you have presented a comprehensive and challenging review of the subject. A few comments occur to me after a first reading of your article: 1. My own master and guide in matters of the spirit, Rabbi E. L. Dessler z"l used to expound the basic meaning of emunah as 'honesty'. He said that emunah is that attitude to life which arises of itself when a person is completely honest with himself, and true to the deepest springs of his being. 2. An interesting example (in reverse) of co-existence in one person of (existential) doubt and (intellectual) faith can be found in R. Zadok Ha-Cohen ("Resisei Lailah", Lublin 1903, p.160). He raises the problem of the intense questioning of the justice of God by some prophets (e.g., Habakkuk), when the whole problem of tsaddik ve-ra' lo etc. is solved very simply in the Talmud by reference to olam ha-ba. He answers that prophecy wells up from springs of being deeper than intellection - i.e., existentialist experience - and therefore has no access to matters beyond human experience, e.g., olam ha-ba. (Cf. Maharal, "Tiferet Yisrael", ch.57, who uses the same insight to explain why there is no direct reference to Olam ha-ba in the Torah, which is also basically prophecy - the prophecy of Mosheh Rabbenu). The latter is however accessible to intellectual cognition, and is thus discussed and analyzed by Chazal, illustrating the principle of hacham adif mi-navi. (It is however not completely clear from R. Zadok whether he holds that the two attitudes were present simultaneously in one mind, or whether the development of the cognitive element was a later historical development.) 3. Personally I do not believe that substantive doubt can be effectively isolated from functional faith. A person can only live as a whole, and doubt at the heart of things must inevita…
General Jewish Thought Talmudic Analysis