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Correspondence

June-October 1972

Exchange with R. Riemer about R. Lamm's Writings on the Intersection of Halacha and American Law (1972)

Jewish Law & Secular Law

1. R. Riemer to R. Lamm

1. R. Riemer to R. Lamm (June 22, 1972)

1. R. Riemer to R. Lamm (June 22, 1972)

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Exchange with Lawrence Kobrin about Project on Talmud and Contemporary Legal Issues (1976)

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 R. Riemer about R. Lamm's Writings on Jewish Law and Human Rights (1972)

Dear Rabbi Lamm, Thank you for your letter and for the sermon. The same mail chanced to bring something from Israel which I thought I should mention to you in case you haven’t seen it. It is a series of studies by Dr. Nahum Rackover, the advisor on Jewish law of the Israeli Government’s Justice Dept. on Jewish Law and questions of human rights which touch many of the same topics that you have written about such as the laws of privacy and self incrimination, and so I thought I should call this to your attention in case you have not seen it. Dr. Rackover’s address is Richov Itamar Ben Tzvi 22, Jerusalem. What I would like to talk to you about one of these days is your work on halachah and human rights. Your two essays on the 4th and 5th amendments are required readings in the course I give each semester at Stern in Jewish Law and the secular law, and the students have found them very enlightening. You really ought to do more work along these lines relating Jewish law to the problems in law when it is read. I think Lily Edelman has mentioned to me that you are at work on a book along these lines, and if so I would like to know more about it and urge you to see it when it is ready. It should be a helpful work. Tell me what other material on Jewish law and contemporary issues you have prepared, if you will, and perhaps we can talk more in depth about these things the next time I get to New York. Meantime with all good wishes for briyut haguf vihanefesh, I am sincerely yours, Rabbi Jack Riemer
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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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