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Correspondence

August 2007

Exchange about Noah Feldman's "Orthodox Paradox" (2007)

Antisemitism Modern Orthodoxy & the Charedim Combating Assimilation

1. Correspondent 17 to R. Lamm

1. Correspondent 17 to R. Lamm (Aug. 5, 2007)

1. Correspondent 17 to R. Lamm (Aug. 5, 2007)

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A Response to Noah Feldman (2007)

Dear Prof. Feldman, my first – and last – impression after reading your extremely well-written New York Times Magazine essay (more properly – a manifesto) is one of sympathy for your predicament, respect for your honesty, and profound sadness at the community’s misfortune when one of our best and most well-known yeshiva day school graduates sees nothing wrong with “marrying out.” Worse: you wittingly or unwittingly exposed your coreligionists to opprobrium in arguably the world’s most public forum – even as you express admiration for the Jewish tradition, especially for Modern Orthodoxy. True, we no longer “sit shivah” for a relative who married out. But all of us experience poignant anguish when a brilliant and once fully committed son of our people, who earnestly believes he is not rejecting his upbringing, effectively does just that in justifying his transgression and holding us up to ridicule. And why so? Because you violated a major principle of Judaism and yet object when we, your fellow Jews, express our heartache in one of the only ways open to us. Quite simply, my dear Prof. Feldman, you want to have your cake and eat it too. Sorry, but that just can’t be done. Frankly, your resentment at the removal of your name and photo from the alumni list of your high school and other such petty discourtesies does not elicit much sympathy from me. Tantrums do not move me. I am moved by your resolve to continue your relationship to Judaism. And I value your suggestion that we reexamine our attitude to the social ostracism we have practiced heretofore. We certainly will not accept the violation of the law with equanimity, but we ought to rethink how we can express our displeasure in a manner that will not close the doors to teshuva – if indeed the couple wishes to take advantage of it. Apparently, you take the matter of intermarriage lightly – something on the line of eating non-glatt-kosher meat. If so, you are sorely mistaken. True, one can make a case that out-marria…
Modern Orthodoxy Combating Assimilation

Correspondence

Exchange with Alan McCornick about Noah Feldman's "Orthodox Paradox" (2007)

Dear Rabbi Lamm: I read with great interest your letter to Noah Feldman (Jewish Daily Forward, August 2, 2007) admonishing him to fix the damage you suggest he inflicted on the Jewish community and on a certain Daniel of your acquaintance, in particular. I hope he will do as you did, write back, and make his remarks public. This is an issue of tremendous importance to Americans and to all people living in a modern pluralist democracy.Your differences line you up in the current culture war between those inclined toward one or another authoritarian tradition on the one hand, and those inspired by Enlightenment notions of universal human equality on the other. You may prefer to keep this Jewish, but as long as you are in America, the larger culture, I believe, will frame the questions and invite outside participation as well.Pope Benedict XVI’s recent call for Roman Catholics to renew their conviction that access to heaven is limited to his narrow gate will be rejected by most of us, Roman Catholics included, for the parochial view it is, and his prayers for your conversion, now that his Church has lost its teeth, will come across more as pitiful than insulting. How can your claim to have the keys to a narrow Jewish truth help but come across similarly?Just as you suggested Noah Feldman benefits from the orthodoxy he criticizes, you benefit, unless you close yourself off from it, from the fresh air of the Enlightenment. The freedom from Roman Catholic oppression which once created considerable misery for Jews and other non-Catholics is the same freedom Professor Feldman has sought and found from ways of being Jewish that shut out an embrace of the benefits of experience. He is not rejecting Judaism; he is exemplifying what makes it universal.Defining your tradition as Jewish Orthodox, but not as simultaneously Jeffersonian and Spinozan, is analogous to embracing your father’s wisdom and denying your mother’s. What a shame you should throw in your lot with authoritaria…
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Correspondence

Exchange with Ronald Jasper about "Modern Orthodoxy's Identity Crisis" (1970)

Dear Rabbi Lamm: Having read your article in the May–June, 1969 issue of Jewish Life, I believe the author of the attached has misstated your thesis and you might want to reply. I bring this to your attention just in case you have not seen it. Best regards from both Hedy and myself. R. Jasper
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