Home Home / Letters to the Editor re: R. Lamm's Art…

Article

November 1967

Letters to the Editor re: R. Lamm's Article on the Fifth Amendment (1967)

Practical Halacha Jewish Law & Secular Law
View The Text

This content is currently available in its original PDF format. As we expand the library, we plan to add a text version as well.

RELATED CONTENT

Correspondence

Letter from Dr. Dienstag about Article on the Fifth Amendment and Halacha (1955)

Dear Norman: Zei mir mochel 100,000 mohl for my long silence! I am burdened with work beyond description. I did take off time to read your very interesting essay on the "Fifth Amendment" and it was a relief to me know that the Rabbinate did not ruin you – Halvai Veiter! Please believe me when I tell you that I am profoundly impressed by your good judgement and erudition: Torah V'hochmah bemokom echod. I am glad that "Judaism" has accepted it for publication and I hope you will be able to supply me with a reprint thereof. Of course, it should be sent to another publication. Please insist on obtaining reprints from the Ketuba article; it is important that such material should get wide distribution which is otherwise lost in the periodical "runs". The same goes for the Judaism article. As to the She'lah concerning Birchat Kohanim which I would not want you to offer to Pardes, it is at present difficult for me to advise. I would like to check with some Israeli publications and let you know later about it.Meanwhile, I am closing with the satisfaction that I am to have more and more naches from you.Do let me hear from you.Yours, Jacob I Dienstag
Jewish Law & Secular Law

Correspondence

Letter from R. Isaac Klein about Article on the Fifth Amendment and Halacha (1956)

Dear Rabbi Lamm: Let me congratulate you upon your fine study published in the last issue of Judaism. I am happy to learn that the day by day duties of the rabbinate have not completely displaced your inclination to study. Keep it up. Very few rabbis manage to pay proper attention to both. May I also use this opportunity to thank you for your telegram congratulating me at the occasion of my receiving life tenure. It was very thoughtful of you and I appreciate it very much. Regards to your charming rebbitzen and to your entire flock. Rabbi Isaac Klein
Jewish Law & Secular Law

Correspondence

Letter to Saul Bernstein about Response to Article on Fifth Amendment (1967)

Dear Mr. Bernstein: Mr. Gross has completely missed the point of my ״unsound״ essay on the Fifth amendment. I obviously did not advocate the complete substitution of the Halakhah for the Constitution as the legal code of the United States; even Israel has not yet adopted Halakhah as its official law. Had I intended such far-fetched notions, Mr. Gross could readily have pointed to the disqualification of all current Supreme Court Justices on the grounds of their not being Jewish. One could easily discover other such absurdities. What I clearly had in mind, in addition to a comparative analysis for its own sake, was the suggestion that certain profound insights of the Halakhah ought to be studied and adopted by American jurists. The legal concepts considered by the Halakhah as applicable to Israelites are, in our view as traditional Jews, the product of divine wisdom, and hence ought to be emulated by all people. "For this is your wisdom and understanding in the sight of the peoples, that when they hear all these statutes they shall say, ’Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people’" (Deut.4:6).Surely a proposal that American courts treat its citizens as benei Noach -- in other words, as strangers in their own country -- will not inspire admiration for the wisdom of the statutes of Judaism. An "understanding people" will suggest that other nations treat their citizens as Jewish law demands that Israel act towards bnei Yisrael. Of course, Mr. Gross, in his excessive literalism, may consider this "a sugary, sermonic, inapposite, and idealistic state-ment" of the rules of Halakhah, but if this is the price one must pay for making the wisdom of Judaism available to the rest of man-kind, it is small indeed.Having said this about the major element in his criticism, may I point out that Mr. Gross’ assertions that confession by a ben Noah is admissible ,'as far as I can discover," is not quite that certain. The references he cites are indeed discoverable in t…
Jewish Law & Secular Law