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September 23, 1997

Orthodoxy and the Rest of the World: An Alternative to Buzz Words and Fuzzy Concepts (1997)

Orthodoxy & Other Denominations
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Familiar Strangers: Orthodox Jews Encountering Non-Orthodox Jews and Non-Jews (1996)

[Circa 1930. A European Jew who has come to America:] "A goy is a goy, my father used to say in the old country; meaning, we don't trust them and the less we have to do with them the better. And who could blame him for saying so, after all that has happened in Europe? Even for a long time after I came to this land of golden opportunity, I stayed with the rest of the landsmen on the Lower East Side of Manhattan – not that I had a choice in the matter, I was so poor. But recently, after I landed this new job and moved uptown, I've come into contact with a lot of goyim and I have to tell you – they're not all such bad people after all. Just yesterday one of them invited me to a party he is making. Sure, they have their crooks and bigots, and there is an occasional sonei Yisrael mixed in. But mostly they are schlepping through this world the same way we are. Some of them would make very good Jews! Now, if I could only get into their country club..."What should we, today, view as our role in the non-Jewish world? What are our responsibilities to the general society? How can we reconcile relationships with non-Jews based on the principles of eivah and darchei shalom with the transcendent perspective that all people are created bitzelem elokim? How should we interact with them socially? Should we establish meaningful personal relationships with non-Jews? Does it matter whether we live in an anti-Semitic society or not? Should we teach the sheva mitzvos to non-Jews?[1996. The European Jew's grandson:]"My grandfather never did get into the goyish country club, but my uncle did. Though he had a talmud torah education, he didn't think it was worth verv much in this country, and he sent his children, my cousins, to public school. Much of our extended family is not frum. Some go to a temple, others don't bother even with that. Soon we are going to have our first real intermarriage, between my cousin and a girl he met in college. We received an invitation but of course we are n…
Orthodoxy & Other Denominations

Assorted

Report of the Study Panel (1969)

The Special Study Panel was created by resolution of the UOJCA National Biennial Convention in 1968/5728 and charged with the task of recommending to the Board of Directors of the Orthodox Union appropriate action in connection with those coordinating or "umbrella" agencies to which the Orthodox Union belongs or in which to accept participation the Orthodox Union has been invited. In the discharge of its functions, the Study Panel has held several sessions, solicited a large number of written comments, conducted a lengthy hearing at which seven leading lay and rabbinic leaders were invited to appear, and undertaken other appropriate studies.While the original resolution and mandate was couched in the broadest possible terms and the Panel attempted to meet that mandate, most of those interviewed or whose opinion was sought confined their response to the matter of the Synagogue Council of America. This interim report, therefore, will deal primarily with that agency and will offer further suggestions for Board consideration concerning other agencies.In order to give the Directors pertinent information concerning the relationship of the UOJCA to the Synagogue of America, the Study Panel decided to submit to the Directors a condensed summary of the arguments, pro and con, as expressed in the written communications and the oral presentations made by leading rabbis and community leaders at the invitation of the Study Panel.The essential arguments for continuing the status quo are as follows:The United States is a country which is basically religion oriented. It is most important, therefore, that there be a voice of religious Jewry which is united, vis-a-vis the total American community. This religious voice is recognized as emanating from the SCA, therefore it behooves the U.O.J.C.A. not to divorce itself from this united voice of religious Jewry.Withdrawal from the SCA, no matter what the justification, would isolate us from the rest of American religious Jewry.By remain…
Orthodoxy & Other Denominations

Correspondence

Exchange with Dr. Avi Rockoff about Speaking to Cross-Denominational Group (1987)

Dear Dr. Lamm, As a member of the Massachusetts delegation you addressed yesterday (and as a YU graduate), I want to thank you for the splendid presentation you gave our group. I assure you that it was as effective as it was forthright and articulate. At our closing session Monday evening, one Conservative and Reform participant after another rose to declare that your speech was the trip's highlight. Said one woman, "Rabbi Lamm was an epiphany." All of us marveled at how clearly superior YU's efforts were to those of the other seminaries. Everyone likes to be taken seriously, and no one could miss the intensity with which you and your colleagues took seriously and in fact shared the goal of our mission: to promote Jewish unity. I have to tell you that as a YU alumnus, I was enormously proud. The result? Reform and Conservative participants were shocked into recognizing how distorted their stereotypes of Orthodox Jews were. (Perhaps we Orthodox members of the group helped a little, too.) But more important: the ideals by which we live commanded new respect by being set forth clearly and without apology. (For example, discussing "patrilineal descent," one Reform woman shook her head and said, "But I thought the Orthodox opposed it just because they wanted to have it their way and not ours. I didn't know there was a law involved.") Our group were concerned ba'alei batim, not radical ideologues; faced with an explanation of halacha, they wanted not to reject it, but to learn more about it. I am sure, Dr. Lamm, that you hoped to accomplish these things, and I just wanted to let you know that, at least as far as this particular group was concerned, you succeeded. Next, of course, you have to host a Unity delegation from Agudas Yisroel and the Chassidim of Munkacs... Meanwhile, we will do our best in Boston to have our leaders follow your example. Once again, thank you. Sincerely, Avi Rockoff
Orthodoxy & Other Denominations