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November 27, 1998

Excerpts of Remarks by Dr. Lamm at the Orthodox Union National Convention (1998)

Orthodoxy & Other Denominations Modern Orthodoxy & the Charedim
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Outline

Centrist Orthodoxy and the Rest of the Jews (1997)

I. A friend has recently spent a Shabbos in a Chassidic community, and now he is bugging you to come with him. “It’s the greatest!” he says. “Those Chassidim really know how to do Shabbos!” You hesitated at first, but his persistent prodding finally coaxed you to come. Now it’s Thursday and you’ve called your Chassidic hosts for directions. It starts as a routine call, but after giving directions, your Yiddish-accented host continues: “Now, you must understand that on Shabb – I mean, on the Sabbath, we Jews don’t do any work, just like the Bible says, and this includes driving a car.” He then tells you by what time you have to arrive on Friday afternoon so you won’t “be mechal – I mean desecrate, the holiness of the Sabbath.” How should we view those (chareidi) denominations of Judaism which either don’t understand or simply refuse to accept the legitimacy of centrist Orthodoxy? Do they know something about Judaism that we don’t? Why do some of us seem to assume that we have to go to the chareidim to experience Shabbos? Is it worth it to expend our collective energies trying to educate and/or reach out to them? What about the fact that current demographic studies indicate that the chareidim will continue to grow even as Reform and Conservative Judaism will dwindle?II. “Minchah! Minchah!” You are visiting the campus of a different college when this familiar cry assails your ears. You turn to investigate, and sure enough, leaning out the window of a nearby building is a guy wearing a yarmulke and waving at you. “You’re number ten,” he yells. When you enter the room in which the minyan is being held, you stop short. Yeah, there are now ten people in the room, but only four of them are men. A smiling young woman walks over to you and extends her hand. “Welcome to our local egalitarian minyan,” she says. “Thanks for coming; it’s a really big mitzvah.” Should we support the religious practices of non-frum Jews? Granted, what they are doing is not halachically correct, bu…
Orthodoxy & Other Denominations Modern Orthodoxy & the Charedim

Correspondence

Exchange with Baruch Litvin about His Misgivings Concerning R. Lamm's Participation at HaDoar Dinner (1966)

Dear Rebbi, Shalom: I hope this letter finds you and your family well in every respect. You will note by the above address that I am in Florida trying to recuperate from the illness and the operation. I do make progress but as yet have not completely recovered, but have hope that Hashem will help me. I was greatly distressed and depressed – mildly speaking – that Dr. Belkin was going to the Synagogue Council who has chosen to honor the heads of our 3 major seminaries, unquote. But I have no words to express my pain reading the following words in the Jewish newspaper (enclosing the announcement): “Three Religious Yiddishe Firerers will be honored,” and to my great astonishment—Reform and Conservative—and your being with them will naturally give status to them, recognition that they are religious leaders. Vehamaskil Yavin...So *Ani Hakoton*, Rabbi Lamm's *Chosid*, Baruch ben Moshe Ber, Ben Shlomoh, appeal to you to withdraw your name and declare publicly why.I am quoting to you what Rav Maimon זצ״ל wrote to Ben-Gurion in the matter of “Who is a Jew?” I quote:> “As a friend, I advise and wish that you, like other great men of Israel, will know how to rise above any considerations of personal honor. Acknowledge the truth and publicly declare: ‘As for the word I have spoken, I have made a mistake.’ This will be your greatness and your glory.”Should you ask yourself, what will be the gain? I then will quote again Isaiah, chapter 6, verse 9 and on. Look up the Malbim: when G-d tells Isaiah that he will fail, the prophet asks: then why should I go? And G-d answers him why he should go.And in the words of Buber on his essay “Plato and Isaiah,” at one place he states: Isaiah's failure is an integral part of the way he must take, and finishes his essay:> “But when the prophet feels like one who finds himself surrounded by wild beasts, he cannot withdraw to the role of a silent spectator, as Plato did. He must speak his message. The message will be misunderstood, misinte…

Correspondence

Exchange with Rabbi about R. Lamm's Participation at Interdenominational HaDoar Dinner (1967)

Dear Rabbi Lamm: I was chagrined to read that you are scheduled to be one of the “three spiritual leaders of the three streams (zeramim) of Judaism,” as announced by the sponsors. I realize that this letter is in the category of what you chose to designate at the O.U. Convention as a “dull, obsessive litany” and, therefore, a waste of your time and an imposition on your patience. But I am impelled by a sense of duty to point out that this dinner honoring Conservative and Reform ministers, who for years have used their pulpits, the press and the public platform to teach a “Judaism” which repudiates the Torah in whole or in part, is a product of the climate of permissiveness, which has penetrated large segments of the Orthodox Rabbinate and community. I do not doubt that you considered all this before you agreed, in effect at least (certainly not intentionally) to help honor these ministers and their movements in the eyes of many Jews to whom your participation will make Conservative and Reform “Judaism” a little more respectable Jewishly speaking, than if, for example, you would have publicly rejected the invitation for ideological reasons. Nor do I believe that your message at this dinner, even if it should include a clear rejection of your co-honorees’ stand on “Judaism,” will correct the record, because many more people (not present at the affair) will know and remember the fact that you were a co-honoree with the other two, than what you said at the occasion. My letter is only half-finished and already I feel how useless my effort is when I recall that quite unlike your scholarly self, you chose to hurl such inflammatory terms as “red guards” against some of the rightists, instead of dealing with the issue on the merits. Certainly, when I recall that during the Friday night session, you not only chose to ignore and evade the questions I asked from the floor, but you also lectured me publicly on the waste of my alleged talents, I have no reason to expect a bette…
Orthodoxy & Other Denominations