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Correspondence

March 1, 1966

Exchange with R. Berkovits about Organizing Group for "Western Orthodoxy" (1966)

Modern Orthodoxy
Background Information

Even as they had their differences of opinion, there was a great deal of mutual respect between Rabbi Lamm and Professor Eliezer Berkovits.

Background Information

1. R. Berkovits to R. Lamm

1. R. Berkovits to R. Lamm (March 1, 1966)

1. R. Berkovits to R. Lamm (March 1, 1966)

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Dear Rabbi Lamm, I want to write to you in order to tell you that I deeply admire your religious convictions, your broad range of learning, and your ability to write clearly with much depth. No one more than I appreciates it since I along with you like to base a personal philosophy of life within the framework of Judaism. I have read your reply to the questions posed in Commentary on the August symposium and have also had occasion to read your lecture Why be Orthodox in which particularistic insights like this in common with those who are firm in Tradition and Jewish life are meaningless. In general I am very happy you have taken this stand because nothing but harm and confusion is produced among those who have long since left Orthodoxy or to those Jews in the United States whose perspective of Judaism is one brought anything but learned and committed minded scholars. As a young man of age 26 and a graduate of the University of Wisconsin in Madison in political science along with having a religious background, I have been influenced strongly by such distinguished Orthodox Jewish writers and Jewish leaders by Leo Jung, Studies in Judaism by Solomon Schechter, Man and Judaism by Eliezer Berkovits, Judaism Eternal by Samson Raphael Hirsch, Judaism, Scholasticism and Islam by Louis Ginzburg, Jewish Law and Jewish Life by Pinchas Peli, The Philosophy of Judaism by Samuel Belkin, Reconstructionism, a Critical Appraisal by Eliezer Berkovits, Judaism, A Historical Presentation by Solomon Freehof, A History of the Jewish People by Max Margolis and Alexander Marx. I have a regular subscription for the past ten years to the Jewish Observer newspaper. I usually do not buy or read Commentary except on special occasions. However I find much dignity and honesty in what is expressed. I have wondered whether there were times when both the Orthodox and the Conservative were when Judaism was being trampled under by the numbers from Eastern Europe to the United States. Certainly West…
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