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Correspondence

Oct. 21, 2001

Letter from R. Ort about Retirement from YU Presidency (2001)

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Exchange with Joseph Yoshor about Retirement from YU Presidency (2001)

Dear Norman, When I said good shabbos to you at the end of the davening at the Great Synagogue on Shabbat Bereshit, I said that I was sorry that you “had to retire.” I meant “had to” in the sense of the ineluctable passing of our generation and the handing over of what we hold dear to our successor generation. As you observed, it was what you wanted - and rightly so. But though it must be, it saddens me. As your classmate in what now seem like days of yore, I have over the years attended to, with a sense of pride, even personal pride, your brilliant stewardship of our beloved alma mater. Our meeting at the Great Synagogue stirred my memory. I remember that when my son Daniel was a senior at MTA he was in throes of deciding which college to attend. I very much wanted him to continue at Yeshiva, but he was being enticed by the siren calls of more famous schools. I came to see him one night and we went to the cafeteria. By happy chance we met you and you graciously joined us at dinner. We discussed college choice, and you persuasively stated why Yeshiva might be a good choice for Daniel. I was delighted that in effect you were recruiting my son. After Daniel was graduated by Yeshiva College, he was admitted to Pritzker Medical School at the University of Chicago. I remember his initial apprehension as a freshman coming from what seemed to him like an obscure school that he would be unprepared to keep up with other students, mainly from the Ivy League and similar institutions. He quickly found that Yeshiva was not a drawback at all and he competed very well. He is now an assistant professor of neurosurgery at Baylor Medical School. His wife Shira, a Stern College graduate, (the daughter of Rabbi Radinsky of Charleston) was not long ago named a law partner of Baker Botts. And they have three children. They are not unique. What is most important is that they, like many other achieving Yeshiva graduates, have made their lives consonant with the Torah that they acquired at…
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Exchange with R. Ort about Retirement from YU Presidency (2001)

Dear R. Lamm, I recently read in a newspaper that you had announced your intention to retire from your position this coming summer. I was very sombered by the news. It is fourteen years since I have left the Yeshiva and we have had any direct contact, so obviously I am not capable of espousing any opinion on the matter. It is, however, an opportunity to express some personal emotions.
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Letter about Retirement from YU Presidency (2001)

Dear Rabbi Lamm, I have composed this letter in my mind numerous times, though inevitably my most eloquent phrasing comes either late Friday night or in the middle of class. When I heard of your impending retirement my first thought was to write to you. In the following satisfaction over my brilliant idea I conveniently avoided a few details. As reality sunk in, the difficulty of the task I had set for myself only moments earlier began to dawn upon me. What would I write? How could I say everything that I meant to? The doubts continued to accumulate and a trip to the local Hallmark looked increasingly appealing. But somehow, my thoughts continuously returned to the letter that I had firmly decided not to write. I felt compelled to try, even if the only product I would be able to offer was the silent tribute of discarded papers attesting to my effort. I will strive, as my English teacher often says, “to Strunk it.” Pithy and precise will be my goals, though I may, in my quest to include everything, bore you with mundane details. If this occurs feel free to skip ahead to the more exciting aspects of the letter. It is strange because I am literally the queen of brevity. Circumlocution annoys me and I cannot stand the use of a paragraph when a sentence or a word would suffice. Yet suddenly I find I cannot say enough, so I apologize in advance for any extraneous information I may include. My journey began at the start of my junior year. Inquisitive by nature, I found something lacking in the religious viewpoints that were supported by my school. I was unable to accept their position without first understanding it, though my teachers often refused to tolerate what they viewed as criticism of their belief system. An avid reader, I looked through my father’s library in search of relevant literature. I studied the Rav, Heschel, Wiesel, Buber, and more. I enjoyed some more than others, but there were none that I could wholly accept. Torah U’Madda was different. I can’t real…
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