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October 1, 1951

Man Is not Alone (1951)

Rosh Hashanah Torah & Technology
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Speech

Religion in a Technological Society (1960)

Not too long ago, the major efforts of men of good will were directed towards brotherhood, brotherhood between Jew and Christian, and all people of diverse faiths, colors and creeds. They recognized the dangers inherent in ideological divisiveness. Though on the one hand it may be good because of the strength that our society gains from the different strains fed into it, yet, on the other hand, this ideological clash might, in the hands of petty people, lead to fanaticism. Today, the question of the coexistence of different religions and peoples is still very important indeed. A look at the daily newspaper will prove that to everyone's satisfaction. However, the problem of brotherhood between members of different religious communities has now been transcended by the paramount question of our times: survival against the common enemy of all. I refer to the monster of technology, that giant whose feet are planted on a launching pad and whose head is in a mushroom cloud. Science, which we once believed would usher in our Utopia, has fathered the single greatest threat to the human race besides which all others fade into pale insignificance. The problem of our day and for many days to come is the threat of runaway technology. Recently, a magazine carried an interesting cartoon. It showed two scientists, astronomers, gazing through a large telescope at some distant star which was exploding. One turned to the other and said, “Well, there goes another one where they learned how to make it.” That is, indeed, the great danger to the lives of all of us. Shall the fate of Earth be the same as that exploding star which may have “learned to make it”? Basically, what faces us is the problem of Progress. The heyday of the idea of Progress — that people ought to progress and that they inevitably will — was concurrent with the rise of modern natural science in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. But regardless of whether we still subscribe to this philosophical p…
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Article

The Perils of Progress - Draft

I. In the Beginning: In the vocabulary of contemporary man, the words "progress" and "progressive" hold a distinct place of honor. Progress is regarded as an unimpeachable virtue, a synonym for all that is good and noble in life. Indeed, the progress resulting from the advances of science in our day is a tribute to the creativity of modern man. It is amazing to note, therefore, that our Torah does not seem to share this popular unconditional adulation of Progress. The Torah, in its hesitation, seems to indicate that there are also pitfalls and perils in Progress. For, as Dr. Israel Eldad in his Hegyonot Ha-Mikra points out, in Genesis it is Cain who represents the man of creativity. Of the two brothers, it is he who is the oved adamah, the farmer who digs and plants and fertilizes and weeds and prunes in order to develop a plant -- a thing of value from a mere seed. And Cain, surely, did not have the most desirable character. And yet there is another aspect to the Torah's estimation of Progress. For if we are to accept this identification of avodah with creativity, "work" as a synonym or at least prerequisite for progress, then we must go back one generation earlier in order to find its true originss. It was Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden who were commanded l'avdah u le'shamrah, "to work it and keep it". The concept of avodah, or Progress, was already known to Adam. And since this is a divine command, and is the occupation of man in Paradise, it would seem that the reverse of what we said above is true; that creativity and progress and technical advances are accepted as noble virtues and praiseworthy goals of human activity in the world-view of the Bible. II. Controlled Creativity: The correct understanding of the Torah's conception of Progress comes when we realize that in the Garden of Eden, God gave two commandments to Adam and Eve: l'avdah u-le'shamrah. The first was "to work it": avodah, creativity, the forward impulse, the capacity to produce and build. T…
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Correspondence

Exchange with R. Kertes about Sermon Request (1953)

My dear Rabbi Lamm: I came from Israel. Be good enough put me on the mail list of your weekly Bulletin, and let me mail some of your Dinim, but mainly all of Jewish Meaning. Thank you in advance.
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