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Correspondence

December 1963-January 1964

Exchange with R. Louis Rabinowitz about Heterodoxy in South Africa and Community Leadership (1963)

Orthodoxy & Other Denominations South Africa

1. R. Rabinowitz to R. Lamm

1. R. Rabinowitz to R. Lamm (Dec. 25, 1963)

1. R. Rabinowitz to R. Lamm (Dec. 25, 1963)

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Correspondence

Exchange with R. Lapin about Invitation to Speak at Synagogue and Organizing Association of Orthodox Jewish Scientists in South Africa (1963)

Dear Rabbi Lamm, Dr. Azriel Rosenfeld has probably told you that he has written to me and mentioned your name with regard to the Association of Orthodox Jewish Scientists. Needless to say, you are very well-known to me through your writings and the Rabbinical work you have done, and your many achievements. The real purpose of this letter is to tell you how very pleased my wife and I are about your impending visit. I have already spoken to the South African Jewish Board of Education asking them to make arrangements for you to preach at my Synagogue and to spend Friday night and Shabbat with us in our home. It will be a very great honour and privilege for us to have you, and I have a very satisfying suspicion that you will enjoy preaching in my Synagogue. The attendance is an excellent one, and those who come to Synagogue are of a high intellectual standard. I would also like to make arrangements for certain of our members to meet you. I hope that providing the South African Jewish Board of Education is agreeable to this arrangement that it also meets with your approval. In the meantime, if there is anything at all that I can do for you here please do not fail to ask me. I shall be only too happy to be of some assistance to so distinguished a guest. Kind regards, and very best wishes for a happy journey and safe landing in South Africa. Sincerely yours, [Signature]
South Africa

Correspondence

Exchange with R. Rabinowitz about His Successor in the Chief Rabbinate of South Africa (1961)

Dear Rabbi Rabinowitz: It was a pleasure to hear from you and to know that all is well with you. We are looking forward with great expectation to your article on “The Time Lag of Halacha” for the Festschrift in honor of Rabbi Jung. We do hope it will be submitted at the time indicated. As to the confidential information you solicited concerning “P”, all I can do is repeat with greater emphasis the estimation I originally gave you. He is a man of some talent and he makes a very favorable impression, but he is a thoroughly irresponsible person, and I would not say this if I did not feel that he could undo all the work that you have accomplished for the past 20 years. This information is given to you of course on the premise that my name will not ever enter into the picture and that what I am telling you is only for your own information. At the same time may I reiterate my warm recommendation of Rabbi Rabinowitz of South Carolina. You will remember that he was the one I recommended previously. It will be a great victory for all of Judaism if he will win the appointment. With best regards to Mrs. Rabinowitz, sincerely yours, Norman Lamm
South Africa

Correspondence

Letter to R. Rabinowitz about American Orthodox Relations with Israel (1961)

My Dear Rabbi Rabinowitz: Your manuscript on the problem of American Orthodox relations to the State of Israel finally arrived yesterday and I read it with great care. Needless to say it is extremely well done and clearly points to a major problem in the whole ideological structure of American Orthodoxy. This problem has bothered me considerably, especially after my visit to Israel when I returned from India six months ago. I myself feel caught up In the ambivalence that seems to characterize the whole posture of traditional Judaism in the United States. It is something that cannot be lightly dismissed. I think it requires very deep thought and profound analysis, and I suspect that the underlying motives are of a highly consequential nature. As a matter of fact, I am beginning to doubt whether there will be any "great debate" on this theme in our ranks. I fear that the problem is too deeply psychological in a collective sense to become the basis for a doctrinal dialogue which involves at least two clearly defined points of view.Space does not permit me to elaborate on my preliminary thinking on this subject. I wish we had spent more time together when you were here on your last visit. However, I would like to offer this suggestion: the dilemma, to my mind, is caused in no small way by the modesty of the original Zionist aspirations. Zionism dreamt of a State and now we have it – how after this fullfillment, are we still to entertain Zionism as a worthy goal?I believe that if all of Zionism had been geared to the messianic visions of a Kalischer or Reines, visions which transcended the political and social and were informed by a mystic and eschatological impulse, then Zionism would still be a dynamic reality for committed Jews today. This, of course, is in addition to the sense of frustration and disappointment which American Orthodoxy suffers when contemplating the secularism am of the Non-Orthodox elements in Israel and the refusal of so much of the right wing to …
Orthodoxy & Other Denominations Zionism South Africa