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February 1, 1960

Is Traditional Orthodox? (1960)

Modern Orthodoxy Orthodoxy & Other Denominations
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Speech

Address: The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America (1990)

The initiation of a new administration is similar to the dawn of a new day. Just as the day begins with מודה אני, so the installation of a new president and officers ought to begin with מודה אני to the outgoing president and his associates. I am therefore pleased to acknowledge with gratitude the hard work, earnest efforts, and many achievements of Shimon Kwestel and his colleagues. These have not been calm years, and he has borne the weight of office with ease and conducted himself with endless dedication and enthusiasm. The entire Orthodox community is indebted to him and his fellow officers, who, we know, will continue to give of their wisdom and experience to the incoming administration. The next administration or two will put its stamp on the UOJCA as the 20th century draws to a close. And it comes into office as a new world seems to be emerging — both globally and for us in the Jewish and especially the Torah community. I generally distrust the hoopla so characteristic of conventions, in which organizational spokesmen point with pride at their own supposed achievements and view with alarm the alleged failings of their adversaries. I am suspicious when they overstate the positive and favorable and minimize or omit the negative and unfavorable. Yet I believe that at this point in our history, we can allow ourselves the luxury of just a bit of optimism — provided that we do not allow it to lull us into euphoric paralysis. Things are changing before our very eyes, as the sands of time shift beneath our feet — and for once, most of the changes seem to be for the good. These improvements in the condition of Orthodoxy, these brightened prospects for Torah, require of us not only an expression of gratitude, not only a surge of new confidence, certainly not the smugness of triumphalism — but a sober appreciation that these events constitute a historic challenge for us to exploit the new situations so as to make the prospects for the acceptance of Torah by Jews even gr…
Modern Orthodoxy Orthodoxy & Other Denominations

Article

Modern Orthodoxy's Identity Crisis (1969)

The facts about our community, as represented by the Orthodox Union, are rather encouraging. Numerically and institutionally, in terms of youth and influence, we are a significant group in this country. But we are beset by many problems. And our thorniest and most disabling problem is, curiously, an “identity crisis” – perhaps a sign of our youthfulness as an ideological movement. Objectively examined, what binds us together as a separate entity is our full commitment to the Torah tradition and our openness, at the same time, to the wider culture of the world about us. To use the two dreadfully inadequate words which normally describe us as a distinct group, we are both “modern” and “orthodox.” I shall be using these terms only with the greatest hesitation. “Orthodox” is almost pejorative; it implies a stifling and unthinking narrow-mindedness. And “modern” is amusingly pretentious; it adds nothing to the validity or invalidity of a proposition. Jacques Maritain recently referred to this as “chronolatry,” the idolatry of what is newest or latest in time. But while this observation is true enough as it goes, it does not go nearly far enough. Merely to describe what we are is not a sufficiently convincing reason for being what we are or for persuading others to acknowledge our rightness and join our ranks. The great problem of modern American Orthodoxy is that it has failed to interpret itself to itself. This failure, which reveals itself in many ways, derives from a remarkable intellectual timidity which we should have long outgrown. One should not be too harsh in judging the past. There were reasons – good reasons – for our apologetic posture. But it was humiliating. In confronting the outside world and those to the left of us, we seemed to be saying that while we hold on to the practices and doctrines of the Jewish tradition, we are really just like everybody else, perhaps even more so. We appeared to be whispering, in unbecoming shyness, that we were not really …
Modern Orthodoxy

Correspondence

Letter from R. Jakob Petuchowski about Centrist Orthodoxy (1988)

Dear Dr. Lamm: Although we have met personally only once, at one of the institutes arranged by David Hartman, I have long been an admirer of your writings in both Tradition and Moment. The favorable impression I have gained from your writings has now been greatly reinforced by reading the draft of your “Centrist Orthodoxy.” Thank you for sending it to me. First of all, let me tell you that I like the spirit of ahavat Yisrael in which that pamphlet is written. I like the call for moderation and the cooling of tempers. And I like your way of defining Centrist Orthodoxy per genus et differentiam. The spirit of your presentation reminded me somewhat of the atmosphere of Torah im derekh eretz, in which I had been brought up in Berlin. Could I engage in some nit-picking arguments with what you have to say? I suppose I could. Right as you are in saying that “Torah Judaism” is a redundancy, “for what is Judaism if not Torah?,” I feel somewhat uneasy about having any one group within Judaism lay a monopolistic claim to that name. Granted that Conservative Judaism, for example, is subject to the kind of criticism you level against it, I would argue that, even within Conservative ranks, there have been – and are – some believers in, and practitioners of, “Torah Judaism.” And hard as those believers and practitioners may be to find within the organizational structure of Reform Judaism, I would argue that, if you look hard enough, you might find one or two even there. The recently deceased Rabbi William G. Braude z”l of Providence, Rhode Island, could certainly be considered as such. But then, I understand that it is in the nature of any orthodoxy to make monopolistic claims; and as long as such claims have to be made, it is better to hear them expressed with your kind of derekh eretz than hurled in the strident voice of self-righteousness. It is certainly kind of you to inquire whether you reported my opinions correctly. On the whole, you did, although in my JRJ article I did …
Modern Orthodoxy Orthodoxy & Other Denominations