Home Home / Exchange with Baruch Litvin about His M…

Correspondence

December 1966

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

1. Baruch Litvin to R. Lamm

1. Baruch Litvin to R. Lamm (Dec. 1, 1966)

1. Baruch Litvin to R. Lamm (Dec. 1, 1966)

View The Text

This content is currently available in its original PDF format. As we expand the library, we plan to add a text version as well.

Next Letter

RELATED CONTENT

Correspondence

Exchange with R. Berkovits about R. Lamm's Appointment to YU Presidency (1976)

Dear Norman, Congratulations on your appointment. This was, of course, bound to come: strange that this time the best man available was elected to our important position. I don’t wish you good-bye, not only because I wish you well personally but also, and mainly, because I wish Yeshiva University – and perhaps I ought to say, Judaism at large – well. I believe it is not belittling the achievements of Dr. Belkin if I say that we have reached a stage at which Y.U. needs a new direction, a comprehensively integrated educational philosophy, and an intellectual, devoted confrontation with the problems of the day. You, belonging to another generation, fully involved in the problematics of the contemporary situation, are able to do the job. Speed and mazal tov. I pray that you have the providence that you need for every success. Sincerely, Eliezer Berkovits.
Biographical Material

Correspondence

Exchange with R. Borowitz about R. Lamm's Debate on Messianism with R. Spero (1974)

Dear Norman, Shubert has asked for a chance to respond to your response. On reviewing the exchange, I (and Nat) found it to be of such intrinsic merit that we believe it is worth printing. I’ve asked Shubert to send a copy of his next response to you directly, so that you may then make your final comment if you wish. But I think the material should commit you both. The material should not be designed as between issues! The exchange should be a head to head at my insistence for editorial purposes. We will hold the material exchange for two episodes and then print the 4 pieces at once. I do think the clearest case from your original statement is at stake and the meaning of the theological “center” to Judaism is a common man’s one as the definition of the current polarization is clear. Hence to open a symposium is apt – and that is what the “exchange” will mean. We shall break our self-imposed strategy that each of the two should respond in full to Shubert’s response to your response. Forward to you with response to my request for a statement. All my best – Gene
Orthodoxy & Other Denominations Israel & the Middle East Religion & State

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