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November 19, 1968

Excerpts from Address to National Convention of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America (1968)

Modern Orthodoxy
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Crisis of Modern Orthodoxy (1969)

Sir – A news report in your August 1 issue concerning my views on “Modern Orthodoxy’s identity crisis,” was accurate in summarising my position on the need for “Modern Orthodoxy” to interpret its outlook religiously and unapologetically. Your editorial on the subject, however, misstates my view’s vis-a-vis the differences of opinion that prevail in England. While I appreciate your flattering remarks, I fear that your concluding paragraph vitiates the kind things you said about me. Any objective person who is acquainted with my views and those of Rabbi Louis Jacobs will be astonished to learn that “Rabbi Lamm’s thoughts are almost a paraphrase of the approach of Dr. Jacobs which made him unacceptable to our Orthodox Establishment.”I suspect that Dr Jacobs will take exception to this assertion equally with me. I have consistently in- sisted that Judaism must be based upon the halachic commitment and the acceptance of Torah min ha-shamayim, and have opposed Franz Rosenzweig’s approach per- mitting a subjective selection of which laws and observances to per- form. For this reason I am clearly “ Orthodox,” and am so affiliated, whereas Dr Jacobs has apparently abandoned this position and has so indicated by his membership in the Conservative movement’s Rabbini- cal Assembly.There is no need to belabour the issue. To be critical of Orthodoxy does not and should not make one’s Orthodoxy suspect, nor is it grounds for declaring one’s views a “ paraphrase ” of one who is dissociated from this community. Indeed, without in any way com- mitting Dr Jakobovits to prior approval of my opinions, I feel that the Chief Rabbi would not dis- agree with my contention that our engagement with the world, and particularly our involvement in higher “ secular ” education, should be based- on a solid reli- gious basis rather than on undigni- lied vocational excuse.I regret that my views, which you apparently found worthy enough to bring to the attention of your readers, should have been obf…
Modern Orthodoxy

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Modern Orthodoxy's Identity Crisis - Synopsis (1969)

According to Rabbi Norman Lamm, one of the leading young scholars of Orthodoxy in the United States, modern Orthodoxy is going through a largely unnecessary “identity crisis,” deriving from its failure to work out a successful synthesis on strong theological grounds between its “two Orthodoxies.” This failure “to interpret itself to itself,” Rabbi Lamm said, “derives from a remarkable intellectual timidity, which we should long ago have outgrown,” towards the positions of those both to the Left and the Right of modern Orthodoxy in the United States. Rabbi Lamm, the spiritual leader of the Jewish Center of New York and a professor of Jewish philosophy at Yeshiva University, sharply criticised the “humiliating apologetic posture” of modern Orthodoxy towards those to the Left of the movement. “We seemed to be saying that while we hold on to the practices and doctrines of the Jewish tradition, we are really just like everybody else, perhaps even more so. We appeared to be whispering, in unbecoming shyness, that we were not really foreign or dirty.” At the same time, he continued, modern Orthodoxy has been “almost masochistically apologetic” towards the Right wing of Orthodoxy, which disapproves of its educational policy of engaging in secular studies. To this group, he said, modern Orthodoxy has presented “the lamest of apologies – vocational necessity.” Thus, “our whole existence is based on a practical economic concession – the need of a college degree in order to get a better job,” instead of on sound halachic grounds. Rabbi Lamm said that the problem of modern Orthodoxy is that it has not yet itself accepted “openly and directly on the basis of our major contribution to Jewish life in this century: that it is our religious duty, our sacred responsibility, to live the whole Torah tradition in the world, instead of retreating from a world in which there is literally no longer any place left to retreat to. As long as this condition of spiritual and intellectual diffi…
Modern Orthodoxy

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Modern Orthodoxy's Identity Crisis (1969)

The facts about our community, as represented by the Orthodox Union, are rather encouraging. Numerically and institutionally, in terms of youth and influence, we are a significant group in this country. But we are beset by many problems. And our thorniest and most disabling problem is, curiously, an “identity crisis” – perhaps a sign of our youthfulness as an ideological movement. Objectively examined, what binds us together as a separate entity is our full commitment to the Torah tradition and our openness, at the same time, to the wider culture of the world about us. To use the two dreadfully inadequate words which normally describe us as a distinct group, we are both “modern” and “orthodox.” I shall be using these terms only with the greatest hesitation. “Orthodox” is almost pejorative; it implies a stifling and unthinking narrow-mindedness. And “modern” is amusingly pretentious; it adds nothing to the validity or invalidity of a proposition. Jacques Maritain recently referred to this as “chronolatry,” the idolatry of what is newest or latest in time. But while this observation is true enough as it goes, it does not go nearly far enough. Merely to describe what we are is not a sufficiently convincing reason for being what we are or for persuading others to acknowledge our rightness and join our ranks. The great problem of modern American Orthodoxy is that it has failed to interpret itself to itself. This failure, which reveals itself in many ways, derives from a remarkable intellectual timidity which we should have long outgrown. One should not be too harsh in judging the past. There were reasons – good reasons – for our apologetic posture. But it was humiliating. In confronting the outside world and those to the left of us, we seemed to be saying that while we hold on to the practices and doctrines of the Jewish tradition, we are really just like everybody else, perhaps even more so. We appeared to be whispering, in unbecoming shyness, that we were not really …
Modern Orthodoxy