Exchange with Michael Tabor about Research Suggestions on Chabad (1974)

1. Michael Tabor to R. Lamm (Sep. 2, 1974)

1. Michael Tabor to R. Lamm (Sept. 2, 1974)

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Exchange with Michael Tabor about Birth of a Daughter and Hasidic Thought (1974)

Dear Rabbi & Mrs Lamm, Greeting from your Anglo-Saxon friends! It's a girl!! born on 14 July כ"ד תמוז at 11:50 pm is to be names שושנה – what a relief and excellent timing. Naomi attended the final speech day and promptly afterwards at 4:30 pm we despatched her off to Wallingford Hospital. ב"ה both are well and doing fine. Hopefully I will have some time this summer to catch up on my vocational delights: fiddling, reading, writing & being with my wife & family for a שבת (what a change!?) I would like to send you some ideas on חב"ד for your forthcoming book & if you give me a few weeks I'll be writing a longer letter.May I in the interim make one suggestion. You seem to want to cover a tremendous field within the confines of one book and yet at the same time to resent the profound Hasidic ideas which will require concentrated thought and study. You mention that you don't want to adopt the anecdotal style of Buber or non existentialist/but academic approach of Schulem. If your format is to be selected passages from classical texts & commentary, won't you need to be either highly selective in what you choose or compete with the 8 vols. of שט"נמן on באר החסידות.Anyway be that as it may, I would like to write to you my favorite stories, ideas on חב"ד.The merger between junior/sen school goes ahead in September. I'll be teaching English & social studies across the board & a Rabbi Kelman (a talmid of yours?) is coming to join the staff.With fondest wishes from the Tabor trio to the Lamm sextet, I end with an observation of the previous Rebbe on the state of wester & particularly American society: He says that in America the מחלה is איך מאג, איך קען but the chassidim of old used to say:וואס מען קען זיט – קען מעין זיט אבאר זיט אלס וואס מען מאג בדארף מען טאןThose were the days ...?!כידדות עוזמיכאל תי

Chasidim & Mitnagdim

Letter to Michael Tabor about Jewish Thought in Chabad and Yud Tes Kislev Celebration (1971)

Dear Michael: Mrs. Lamm and I are grateful to you for your post card and your letter containing a number of "Torah thoughts" from Lubavitch. I re-read them with great interest. I say: "re-read," because I get them directly from "headquarters." Unfortunately, I could not go to the י"ט כסלו celebration last night because I was lecturing elsewhere in the city. I know that to a devotee of your conviction this is a very lame excuse indeed, but I hope you will recognize that there has to be someone who, though sympathetic, is outside the camp, in order that all of you who are inside the camp can shine by contrast. Do let me know how you are getting along. My entire family joins me in wishing you a very pleasant and Happy Chanukah-and we look forward to seeing you again in the not too distant future. Cordially, Rabbi Norman Lamm

Chasidim & Mitnagdim