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Correspondence

November 1966

Exchange with Earl Klein about Articles on Jewish Law and the Constitution (1966)

Jewish Law & Secular Law

1. Earl Klein to R. Lamm

1. Earl Klein to R. Lamm (Nov. 22, 1966)

1. Earl Klein to R. Lamm (Nov. 22, 1966)

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I take the liberty of sending enclosed for your perusal a reprint of an article I recently published and which you might find of interest. It concerns a comparative study of the principle of self-incrimination in Constitutional Law and Talmudic Law, and an explanation of the latter from the point of view of psychoanalysis. As you will notice, I have quoted from or referred to your works a number of times. May I be favored with a reply containing some of your comments and reactions? Thank you most kindly. Sincerely, Rabbi Norman Lamm
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Dear Rabbi Lamm: This letter is addressed to you in your role as consulting editor for Ktav on the law and ethics series. It is intended to furnish some specific examples of a line of inquiry in public discussion which we have occasionally discussed in general terms, but without specific illustration. While I am not exactly certain as to the appropriate method for following up these ideas, I wanted to share them with you. The pedagogy of Talmud is, for a variety of reasons, frequently "self-centered", in the sense that it is presented as an all inclusive and self-contained system, rather than as a jurisprudential effort to deal with ongoing business, human relations, or similar problems. The refinements of textural analysis and logical deduction frequently exclude any consideration of the actual application of legal rules to practical business for fact situations. The text of atonement and the practice of the authors of Responsa literature demonstrate that this was not the original intention of the masters of halacha. Presumably, it is only contemporary divorcement of halachic literature from practical application that leads to this result.As a result, the teaching of Talmud may frequently be unnecessarily difficult. For, if the student must be convinced that some particular discussion is important for its own sake, it might be easier to engender interest in thought where a discussion was related to a contemporaneous problem, still posed in courts and legal literature.Some recently reported decisions of the New York Court of Appeals (the highest court in this state), all of them coincidentally by a narrowly divided court, relate or may be considered analogous to matters discussed extensively in the Talmud. The fact that these problems are still current serve to demonstrate that the jurisprudential problems posed in the Talmud are still very much with us and that the solutions found there may be helpful in dealing with contemporary life, however commercial and compl…
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Exchange with Reuben Gross about "The Fifth Amendment and Its Equivalent in the Halacha" (1966)

Dear Father Crehan: I was enormously delighted by your letter. I did not know that in this busy city of ours there was anyone left with his humor intact! The Tradition magazine was sent to you at my request, but the solicitation for a subscription was automatic and certainly not by my request. Please, therefore, do not consider the tragic choice between Life and Tradition. My colleagues tell me that Tradition should reinforce Life and not supplant it... All best wishes. Cordially yours, Rabbi Norman Lamm
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