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July 1, 2013

Remarks Upon Stepping Down as YU Chancellor (2013)

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Commencement Address (1999)

What is it, in perspective of ½ century, that we learned from our undergrad experience at Yeshiva University? What connects me – who was graduated in mid-century – to you, who leave YC during last year this terrible and glorious century? I wish to focus on one issue only – that of knowledge. It is knowledge, after all, that a university purports to transmit to its students. And it is knowledge – ידיעת התורה and דעת השם – that the yeshiva classically strives to imbue its disciples. Our question, then, is at once both universal and intimate, personal. To understand this simultaneously abstract and relevant question, let us begin at the beginning: בראשית, the Torah’s conception of the origins of humankind.Torah: 2 trees: עצה"ד טו״ר ועצה"ח. . .Both forbidden to Adam and Eve. . . Let’s take them one at a time.Tree of Knowledge. “The knowledge of good and evil” = off-limits for man. Punishment for transgression=death. Serpent—metaphor for human concupiscence, human propensity for overreaching, or simply: human weakness—tells our firstלא מות תמותון, כ׳ יודע אלקים כ׳ ביום אכלכם ממנו ונפקחו עיניכם והייתם כאלהים :couple ...יודעי טוב ורעMaimonides question in Guide: Was “punishment” the gift of reason? ...My answer: In Eden, before the primal sin, mankind knew clearly the distinction between Good and Evil. Man admired the purely good, and abhorred the wholly evil. It was the serpent—the human יצר הרע—that threw a monkey wrench into this idyllic scene. He sought to convince our first grandparents that if they ate of the forbidden fruit, the knowledge they possessed would grant them unimaginable gifts, namely, knowledge is power. It is this distortion of the telos, the end and purpose of knowledge, that corrupted humankind. The blessing of knowledge was transformed into a curse: the use or misuse of knowledge for the purpose of control, domination, enrichment. All the good that might have come from the accumulation of knowledge has now been compromised by substituting knowledg…
Bereishit Torah Umadda Yeshiva University The University

Article

Yeshiva U. President to Quit After More than 25 Years (2001)

Norman Lamm, the president of Yeshiva University in Manhattan for the last 25 years and one of the longest-serving university presidents in the United States, announced yesterday that he would step down in August 2002. Dr. Lamm, 73, is the third president of a New York research university to announce his resignation this month, following George Rupp at Columbia and L. Jay Oliva at New York University.“I didn’t want to be carried out feet first,” Dr. Lamm said in an interview yesterday. "I always wanted to finish my tenure at the top, the acme. The university has reached a pinnacle of its development. It has further to go, but I feel I am leaving it in good shape.”Dr. Lamm’s resignation opens the question of the future religious tilt of Yeshiva’s colleges and its theological seminary, which have long embodied the tenets of modern Orthodoxy — a philosophy based around the integration of traditionally rigorous Judaism and modern culture. But in recent years, they have been pulled more toward stricter forms of Orthodox Judaism."It’s been a matter of speculation and a great deal of concern that it will be very hard to find a modern Orthodox successor to Dr. Lamm,” said Rabbi Irving Greenberg, president of the Jewish Life Network, an educational foundation in New York, who is associated with the modern Orthodox movement. He is also chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.Robert M. Beren, the university’s chairman, said the university did not plan to change its direction. “This university is the world center of modern Orthodoxy and that’s where we intend to stay,” he said yesterday.Dr. Lamm was the first American-born president of the 115-year-old university, which started as a day school for boys on Manhattan’s Low-er East Side and today is an independent, secular university under Jewish auspices centered on 185th Street in Washington Heights, one of its four campuses.“He assumed leadership of the university as it teetered on the brink of ba…
Biographical Material

Correspondence

Letter about Retirement from YU Presidency (2001)

Dear Rabbi Lamm, I have composed this letter in my mind numerous times, though inevitably my most eloquent phrasing comes either late Friday night or in the middle of class. When I heard of your impending retirement my first thought was to write to you. In the following satisfaction over my brilliant idea I conveniently avoided a few details. As reality sunk in, the difficulty of the task I had set for myself only moments earlier began to dawn upon me. What would I write? How could I say everything that I meant to? The doubts continued to accumulate and a trip to the local Hallmark looked increasingly appealing. But somehow, my thoughts continuously returned to the letter that I had firmly decided not to write. I felt compelled to try, even if the only product I would be able to offer was the silent tribute of discarded papers attesting to my effort. I will strive, as my English teacher often says, “to Strunk it.” Pithy and precise will be my goals, though I may, in my quest to include everything, bore you with mundane details. If this occurs feel free to skip ahead to the more exciting aspects of the letter. It is strange because I am literally the queen of brevity. Circumlocution annoys me and I cannot stand the use of a paragraph when a sentence or a word would suffice. Yet suddenly I find I cannot say enough, so I apologize in advance for any extraneous information I may include. My journey began at the start of my junior year. Inquisitive by nature, I found something lacking in the religious viewpoints that were supported by my school. I was unable to accept their position without first understanding it, though my teachers often refused to tolerate what they viewed as criticism of their belief system. An avid reader, I looked through my father’s library in search of relevant literature. I studied the Rav, Heschel, Wiesel, Buber, and more. I enjoyed some more than others, but there were none that I could wholly accept. Torah U’Madda was different. I can’t real…
Biographical Material