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Correspondence

January-February 1973

Exchange with Michael Tabor about "Torah Lishmah," Scholarship, and Music (1973)

General Jewish Thought Biographical Material

1. R. Lamm to Michael Tabor

1. R. Lamm to Michael Tabor (Jan. 29, 1973)

1. R. Lamm to Michael Tabor (Jan. 29, 1973)

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Correspondence

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…
General Jewish Thought

Correspondence

Exchange with Michael Tabor about Managing the Chaos of Life (1974)

Dear Rabbi Lamm, Many thanks for your book ‘The Good Society’ which has just arrived. You mentioned in your last letter about getting pen to paper to write down my inner ruminations. Yes there are many, they are there... As I mentioned earlier in previous notes, marriage and my full time job at C.C. has given me that "hisyashvus bakelim" that I have needed for some time. I have passed the theoretical searching pseudo-Hassidic existentialist stage, (let's call it the green period!) I am now trying to work through some of those ideals/ideas in practice which involves interacting with people, conflicts, intrigues and responses. כידועThought and theorizing, in that they seek a uniformity to make the ever present chaos manageable, are somewhat artificial. The living realities often lack coherence and act as necessary filters. They hopefully make our ideas approximate closer to the ernes hadavar...Nevertheless, just to reassure you that the spirit within is still digging, albeit in a more subdued way, I enclose a beautiful nigun I came across recently. I am afraid much of it is in Ukrainish but ya ya’s will do just as well, perhaps your daughter can oblige on the piano, although a wind instrument is preferable. It takes quite some time to get into the mood of the music and definitely a lifetime of heart-searching to get to and live the theme, the penemius... ?+!!I've begun to take an interest in Nach again. Gemorrah (Halachic) is I’m afraid still kept at a respectful distance. Perhaps in time...?Naomi sends her best wishes to all the Lamms and so until I hear from you soon with your reactions to nigun I wish you well.Keep singing,ישמח לב במבקשי ה׳,Micheal T!P.S. There is a recording on Lub record number 4
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Correspondence

Exchange with R. Louis Jacobs about "Torah Lishmah" and Scholarship (1973)

Dear Rabbi Jacobs: I do not believe we have had the pleasure of meeting personally, but I do want to tell you how very impressed I was by the scholarship and lucidity of your latest book, Hasidic Prayer. Your previous two volumes on Hasidism were superb, but I find this one broader in conception and intend to use it in my university teaching on the subject. Cordially, Rabbi Norman Lamm
Biographical Material