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Correspondence

June-August 1998

Exchange with R. Filber about His Questions on "Torah Umadda" (1998)

Torah Umadda

1. R. Filber to R. Lamm

1. R. Filber to R. Lamm (June 25, 1998)

1. R. Filber to R. Lamm (June 25, 1998)

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Outline

Lecture on Torah Umadda (2002)

פותחין לכבוד יאכסניא – ... המורים והתלמידים. TOD: מדע only/תורה only/TuM – Y.U. and pattern all D.S. ST: 12-14 yrs ago, 2 divers emerg fr Medittrnean near Acco, 2 sacks snails, open dye changes yellow → green → blue → blue → deep purple: תכלת! They=2 br-I-1 (dentst/physcst – Sterman/Greenspan – YU grads) – EX: TUM! TOR = ות"ת כנגד כולם...והגית בו יומם ולילה AND: מורשה קהילת יעקב NOT only priestly clss... So; B proud Y J-only rel. Source TuM: בראשית-שמו; also: (רב בקר) שמואל (ירחינאה)
Torah Umadda

Correspondence

Exchange between Dr. Gurock and Prof. Koppel about Speaking Schedule at Inaugural Higayon Conference (1992)

Dear Professor Gurock, I’ve finally finished a month of miluim and am back to work on the Higayon conference. The schedule is now set and invitations are being mailed out. You will receive the complete schedule in the mail some time next week. The opening session will take place on the campus of the Gruss Institute at 7:30 in the evening on Monday October 26. The speakers will be Dr. Lamm and Adin Steinsaltz. I am assuming that Dr. Lamm will be speaking on “Torah u’Mada” in Hebrew for a period of 45 minutes to an hour. If this is unsatisfactory please notify me at once. On another issue, I have clarified with the legal experts here that it would be far better for Yeshiva to pay the stipends of speakers flying in from the States directly to the speakers rather than via our account. This is because money which passes through our hands is subject to a 15% currency-exchange surcharge and is conceivably taxable as well. At the very least, we would expect that those speakers who are employees of Yeshiva (Levine, Rosensweig, Shindman) be paid directly by Yeshiva (with the $3000 then deducted from the $7000 to be sent to us). Please get back to me on this. Best regards, Moshe Koppel
Torah Umadda

Correspondence

Exchange with David Shulman about "Torah Umadda" and the Concept of Rabbinic Infallibility (1990)

Dear Rabbi Lamm, I have just had the great pleasure of reading your Torah Umadda. I very much enjoyed reading a book that presented a spectrum of viewpoints in Torah thought, as opposed to championing one brand as the only genuine approach; I enjoyed your creative approach to Hasidic thought, and your comparative analysis of that and Rav Kook's approach; I enjoyed your bold and radical formulations, and that you did not allow a fear of misinterpretation to blunt your analysis (and, similarly, that you did not allow the spirit of apologetic reactionism to smother your thought); and I enjoyed the fact that your intellectual analysis was not intimidated by the greatness of the men you discussed (I found your characterization of R. Hirsch's approach as "bourgeois" especially interesting, because when I was studying in Monsey's Ohr Somayach some years ago, I one day realized that the yeshiva was espousing a view of life that I then termed "Torah bourgeois.") I have been lately moved to characterize Orthodoxy as the use of lies to support truth, and I found your book, in regard to this, singularly refreshing and un-orthodox - i.e., honest Torah conceptual thought characterized by integrity and substance. This is not to say that I agreed with everything you said, but rather that I agreed with the spirit in which it was said. In regard to one of the concerns that I felt your book hinted at, I would like to ask you the question: What is emunas chachamim - in regard to Chazal, through Rishonim and Achoronin, and to our day? I have asked this question in right-wing circles, where this concept is stressed so dogmatically, yet no one I have spoken to has known (or seemed to care) exactly what it is; in fact, I was sometimes given the impression that asking exactly what emunas chachamim is constitutes lack of it. (One rabbi responded, "It will make you happy to say that Rashi made a mistake?") For me, this is not an academic, theoretical question. It is central to my concerns, a…
General Jewish Thought Torah Umadda