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Correspondence

September 1971

Exchange with R. Borowitz about Article Submission for Sh'ma (1971)

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1. R. Lamm to R. Eugene Borowitz

1. R. Lamm to R. Eugene Borowitz (Sep. 22, 1971)

1. R. Lamm to R. Eugene Borowitz (Sept. 22, 1971)

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Correspondence

Exchange with R. Elkanah Schwartz about Publishing Papers on "New Currents on the Orthodox Scene" (1967)

Dear Rav Lamm – I hope this note finds you and yours well, and at the beginning of a happy, healthy, and fruitful year. Your remarks about my pamphlet project to encourage new writers are much appreciated, both for your having taken the time to respond and for the guidance. The outline has meanwhile been returned to my “ideas” file. Again I ask you for the benefit of your thinking, and hope you will similarly respond. Two summers ago, I organized and chaired a symposium at the Rabbinical Alliance convention on the theme of “New Currents on the Orthodox Scene.” Participants were Irving Glick for AOJS, Rabbi Shlomo Riskin for Yavneh, R. Yitzhak Gilat for Bar Ilan, and (by default) for COLPA, Rabbi Emanuel Rackman. Rackman prepared the paper for publication and then shortly left both YU and the OU. Saul Bernstein then took it in hand to publish it, although he had to cut and shorten my suggestions to him in order to reduce the length to fit their format. At the Glouster session, I met with Marvin Schick, including him in my remarks. He offered this suggestion – that if additional papers are prepared on other important new currents on the Orthodox scene, the project itself will acquire stature and usefulness. Such papers, if in mimeograph form, would in effect serve as “position papers” on these various trends. I have therefore prepared additional essays on the “Jewish Catalog Challenge” and “Outreach and the Traditional Community.” As such, if these were published as a pamphlet, they could assume some stature in themselves. It occurred that COLPA could sponsor such a project. Enclosed are the papers (which could be easily updated) and I return your envelope. Your thoughts and comments will be much appreciated. Sincerely, Elkanah Schwartz
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Exchange with R. Eugene Borowitz about R. Lamm's Appointment to YU Presidency (1976)

Dear Norman – I want to send you a heartfelt mazel tov and on one level or two, I have no difficulty with it. That you deserve this job both in terms of your personal capacity and by contrast to others, is perfectly plain. That it will be good for American Orthodoxy and Yeshiva is more than probable. If anything, I had not expected that Yeshiva would have enough courage to appoint a council of independent men and allow it amount of independent voice and direction. But having done so, they merit the mazel tov. But when I think of the endless morass of finances and administration you are now thrown into – woes and aggravations most of us can image – then I’m not so sure what mazel it is that you’re getting. I can only hope that gradually you will find a way to keep it in its place and that because you are willing to live with it you will be permitted to exert a new measure of leadership to Orthodoxy and all of us. May the new post bring you much blessing, for it will surely be a blessing to the community – Gene
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Exchange with Rabbi about Academic Opportunities (1974)

Dear Norman and family, This letter and especially the return address on the envelope may come as a surprise to you, unless your parents, from whom I got your address when I met them at [redacted] about a month ago, have brought you up to date on the facts. Just in case they have not, I will try to do so as concisely as possible so the shock will not be great. On Friday, August 3, my mother a”h passed away. Not having a place to live at once, I was entertained in Queens for a time, and it inconvenienced the household. In my present condition, I came to reside at this nursing home in [redacted], and I accommodated myself tightly. It is also near a lot of people that I know from the Synagogue, so it is thoughtful and the best place to live at the present. The home and nursing schedule is nice, and I have many other familiar schoolmates and friends of mine, and the brothers and sisters do not lack company. In fact, the recreation is on a certain scale and I can come once weekly and listen to Sunday music, and I admit that it adds all with. Besides that, we taken out quite a few of my $730 with me, and eventually will bring out the rest when the year of rent is up. I hope to bring out my high fidelity set and records so that perhaps I will begin to feel at home. Several of the boys are able to visit and call every once in awhile, but I suppose that is over for the time being, or at least as long as our Orthodox cousins prefer to be haughty and fight the hand that tries to pull them into itself. Some of us announced their quiet evening Friday services when they recite their Krias in Bible, which they also conduct on Shabbos and Yom Tov and wanted to take me at times to picnics or gala affairs where everyone was arranged to taste of the Torah. Otherwise many of the youth home and camp projects for the children have items in common with our projects here and there. But I perioded for me a convenient place to sit and sleep and all necessaries provided including strictly K…
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