Letter from the "Torah Action Committee" Threatening R. Lamm about Position on Interdenominational Dialogue (1966)

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Rabbi Norman Lamm...

We were shocked to read that YOU too are throwing overboard tradition and loyalty to the Gedolim... and have accepted to join a reform and conservative rabbi... as guest of honor for The Hadoar Dinner...

We shall wait 10 days... until Dec. 8th.

If no retraction in paper... we shall appeal to leaders of The Jewish Center to dismiss you because of your dissent and abrogation of Torah authority.

Please remove this Chilul Hashem at once. Have mercy on Torah and YOUR Roshei Hayeshiva.

Torah Action Committee – YU Branch

Exchange with Baruch Litvin about His Misgivings Concerning R. Lamm's Participation at HaDoar Dinner (1966)

Dear Rebbi, Shalom: I hope this letter finds you and your family well in every respect. You will note by the above address that I am in Florida trying to recuperate from the illness and the operation. I do make progress but as yet have not completely recovered, but have hope that Hashem will help me. I was greatly distressed and depressed – mildly speaking – that Dr. Belkin was going to the Synagogue Council who has chosen to honor the heads of our 3 major seminaries, unquote. But I have no words to express my pain reading the following words in the Jewish newspaper (enclosing the announcement): “Three Religious Yiddishe Firerers will be honored,” and to my great astonishment—Reform and Conservative—and your being with them will naturally give status to them, recognition that they are religious leaders. Vehamaskil Yavin...So *Ani Hakoton*, Rabbi Lamm's *Chosid*, Baruch ben Moshe Ber, Ben Shlomoh, appeal to you to withdraw your name and declare publicly why.I am quoting to you what Rav Maimon זצ״ל wrote to Ben-Gurion in the matter of “Who is a Jew?” I quote:> “As a friend, I advise and wish that you, like other great men of Israel, will know how to rise above any considerations of personal honor. Acknowledge the truth and publicly declare: ‘As for the word I have spoken, I have made a mistake.’ This will be your greatness and your glory.”Should you ask yourself, what will be the gain? I then will quote again Isaiah, chapter 6, verse 9 and on. Look up the Malbim: when G-d tells Isaiah that he will fail, the prophet asks: then why should I go? And G-d answers him why he should go.And in the words of Buber on his essay “Plato and Isaiah,” at one place he states: Isaiah's failure is an integral part of the way he must take, and finishes his essay:> “But when the prophet feels like one who finds himself surrounded by wild beasts, he cannot withdraw to the role of a silent spectator, as Plato did. He must speak his message. The message will be misunderstood, misinte…

Exchange with Rabbi about R. Lamm's Participation at Interdenominational HaDoar Dinner (1967)

Dear Rabbi Lamm: I was chagrined to read that you are scheduled to be one of the “three spiritual leaders of the three streams (zeramim) of Judaism,” as announced by the sponsors. I realize that this letter is in the category of what you chose to designate at the O.U. Convention as a “dull, obsessive litany” and, therefore, a waste of your time and an imposition on your patience. But I am impelled by a sense of duty to point out that this dinner honoring Conservative and Reform ministers, who for years have used their pulpits, the press and the public platform to teach a “Judaism” which repudiates the Torah in whole or in part, is a product of the climate of permissiveness, which has penetrated large segments of the Orthodox Rabbinate and community. I do not doubt that you considered all this before you agreed, in effect at least (certainly not intentionally) to help honor these ministers and their movements in the eyes of many Jews to whom your participation will make Conservative and Reform “Judaism” a little more respectable Jewishly speaking, than if, for example, you would have publicly rejected the invitation for ideological reasons. Nor do I believe that your message at this dinner, even if it should include a clear rejection of your co-honorees’ stand on “Judaism,” will correct the record, because many more people (not present at the affair) will know and remember the fact that you were a co-honoree with the other two, than what you said at the occasion. My letter is only half-finished and already I feel how useless my effort is when I recall that quite unlike your scholarly self, you chose to hurl such inflammatory terms as “red guards” against some of the rightists, instead of dealing with the issue on the merits. Certainly, when I recall that during the Friday night session, you not only chose to ignore and evade the questions I asked from the floor, but you also lectured me publicly on the waste of my alleged talents, I have no reason to expect a bette…

Orthodoxy & Other Denominations

Letter to Moses Feuerstein about Response to Report Concerning the Conservative Movement (1963)

Dear Moe: The tendency expressed in the enclosed release is known to me for some time now. There is nothing you or I can or should do about it. My own feeling is that this would consolidate the conservative movement and create an irrevocable break with Orthodoxy. If anyone from the Press should ever ask you what you think of it, especially in light of the lay involvement by The United Synagogue, I strongly urge you to say that it is a completely internal affair and that while you have your opinions you do not feel it appropriate to make any public statement, except for the fact that you do not understand how ”Halakhah” can be decided by non-experts, such as lay leaders of the United Synagogue. Sincerely, Rabbi Norman Lamm

Orthodoxy & Other Denominations