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Correspondence

April 1992

Exchange with Dr. Eckstein about His Book "Metaphysical Drift: Love and Judaism" (1992)

Faith General Jewish Thought Torah & Science Death & Mourning

1. Dr. Eckstein to R. Lamm

1. Dr. Eckstein to R. Lamm (Apr. 8, 1992)

1. Dr. Eckstein to R. Lamm (April 8, 1992)

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Dear Rabbi Lamm, Shalom u-vracha. I hope you and your family are well. Perhaps you remember me from my work on your "Faith and Doubt." I thought you might find the enclosed article interesting in one way or another. It has just been published in the December issue of Religious Studies. Respectfully, Joshua Golding, Phiosophy Dept. Bellarmine College, Louisville KY 40205, e-maiil: joshg@bellarmine.edu
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Exchange with Dr. Lachman about Article on the State of Jewish Belief (1966)

Dear Rabbi Lamm: I have read with great interest the series of articles on the State of Jewish Belief: A Symposium that appeared in last month's Commentary. I found your article to be particularly challenging and incisive. I would, however, like to have some further information regarding a point that you expressed quite cogently on page 111. You wrote "These two functions, the tension between which is inherent in the concept of chosenness, are not antonyms, mutually exclusive, but supplementary ideas. In a study of how this doctrine was treated in Tannaitic times, a contemporary scholar has discovered that the greater the emphasis by an individual sage on chosenness and its inescapable particularism, the greater the breadth of his universalism." I would very much be interested in knowing who the contemporary scholar is that discovered this interesting pattern. Has this study been published? If so, under what title and which publication? Can I possibly receive a copy of this most fascinating work of scholarship?I am presently engaged in preparing an article that deals with American values and Jewish values and the yardstick by which one judges the other. A study which attempts to reveal a breadth of universalism as emanating out of an individual sage’s choseness and particularism is therefore particulary revealing and interesting to me.Thank you for your kind cooperation.Sincerely,Seymour P. Lachman, Director Kingsborough Community College in Mid-BrooklynAdministered by the Board of Higher Education Under the Program of the State University of Hew York
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Letter to Dr. Eckstein about His Article on Religion, Science, and Naturalism (1967)

Dear Jerry: Thanks for your undelayed response and the reprints. On the premise that a philosopher cherishes honesty over courtesy, I do hope you will forgive my remarks. After reading your letter, I was going to reaffirm my respect for psychiatry – though by no means my unreserved adulation of Freud and his followers. However, I then read one of jour articles, "The Fall and Rise of Man," and decided to react only briefly – you are quite right about my being quite busy, especially in this season. I find, Jerry, that, as I have always suspected, you are brilliant, but that you suffer from the same defects as do Reik and others of this school. You have weaved an elaborate web of theory based on Freud, Reik, Fromm, and an eclectic study of genesis (its "myths"), and you conclude with a lecture to unrepentant theologians who still seek to protect "religion" against "science" and remain closed to your triumphant version of naturalism which will, no doubt, conquer all. If I’ve put it somewhat crudely, it’s only to emphasize my feeling that this is a case of hubris (not personal, of course) if I’ve ever seen one.Does your Reikian reconstruction of the ”rise”of man really qualify as ”science?” Do you really believe that only the benighted theolo-glans ** especially those of us who still cling to old Biblical "myths" — are disdained by ”scientists?" Certainly you are aware that, without at all deprecating psychiatry, a good case can be made out for psychoanalysis being "unscientific•”Frankly, your analysis **and I had the same feeling when reading Reik’s essays (in German) on tefillin and shofar -* is a superb derashah. with no more authentic claim on ״science'1 than any good sermon or fanciful pilpul can claim to be peshat. The major differ* ence is that when I preach a "gut vort',’ or elaborate a pilpul — No. 1: I know it isn't academically accurate; No.2: I have no pre* tenses as to its scientific validity; No.3: I don't attempt to give it the appearance of scientific va…
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