RCA Minutes, JPS Bible (1962)

/ RCA Minutes, JPS Bible (1962)

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December 19, 1962

RCA Minutes, JPS Bible (1962)

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Outline

Ki Tezeh (1961)

השמר בנגע הצרעת לשמר מאוד... זכור את אשר עשה... למרים בדרך בצאתם ממצרים. Torah's economy words – why geographical intro in בדדרך בצאתכם ממצרים? Further: often in תורה, reason מצוות is זכר ליציאת מצרים. With holidays, such as פסח or סוכות – logical. But why other? For instance, this sidra: לקט שכחה פאה: וזכרת כי עבד... and again לא תחבל בגד אלמנה, וזכרת כי עבד היית בארץ מצרים. 3. From שפת אמת: reason all Torah's laws: freedom – not necessarily political song, but spiritual. Torah our Emancip Proclamation

Synagogue Sermon

Making Hay out of Religion (1951)

One of the great paradoxes of human nature is the meeting of opposites, the fact that two conditions which are contrary to each other in the extreme can produce the same effects. How frequently are we amused to find the Vatican and the Kremlin toeing, with characteristic dogmatism, the same lines; occasionally we are astonished at the coincidence of views of the Wall Street Journal and the Daily Worker. Both extreme Right and extreme Left are alike in condemning the liberal centre, and in demanding blind obedience of their followers. Both were equally hostile, for instance, to the Marshall Plan. In the same vein, we find that affluence and plenty often produce the same results as do adversity and poverty. It is no secret that indigence breeds immorality and corruption. In the Middle Ages, the Black Plague and the universal poverty combined to cause the greatest crime wave in the recorded history of Europe. Murder, violence and theft were the immediate results of pestilence and destitution. Starvation and privation are bound to unleash the tidal waves of immorality and degeneracy whether in Nablus of Arab Palestine or in Harlem of enlightened New York. Sociologists usually blame low standards of morality on low standards of living. But the astounding fact is that there are people who would behave immorally and irreligiously and unethically when they earn $200 a week, whereas they did not do so when they barely eked out a living at $25 a week. Somehow prosperity will sometimes produce worse effects than will poverty. The recent basketball scandals have shown that boys from wealthy homes are not necessarily immune from the temptation of the fixer. Today, when America is enjoying comparatively high prosperity, the record for narcotics, sports scandals and government bribery is as black as ever. It is a well-established phenomenon that the nouveau riche, the man who has suddenly become wealthy, leaves his House of Worship and forgets his religion. Even political immoral…

Correspondence

Exchange with R. Lookstein and R. Schneier about Publishing Combined Hertz Siddur and Bible (1965)

Dear colleague: It has been suggested that it might be worthwhile publishing, for our synagogues’ use, a set of five volumes, consisting of the Hertz Siddur and Bible. Each volume would consist of a different Humash, followed by the Sabbath morning section of the Hertz Siddur. Even before checking into the expenses involved, I would like to have your reactions as to the advisability and feasibility of this project. Cordially yours, Rabbi Norman Lamm