Dear Milton: Many thanks for sending me Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning," which I just received this morning. I hope to read it carefully, and return it to you when I am done. If you are in a hurry to have it returned, please let me know. Otherwise, I would like to take my time with it, especially in light of the review that you wrote.It was really a pleasure seeing you and Ruth at the wedding in Springfield, and I hope that the two of you and your daughter will have a year of health and happiness, and of great progress on all fronts.Mindy sends her best.Cordially yours, Rabbi Norman Lamm

Dear Milton: Many thanks for sending me reprints of your two articles on Huxley. While I shall not be able to read them until after Yom Kippur for reasons of my obvious preoccupation – I look forward to doing so with great relish, and meanwhile trust what the Talmud calls a "chazakah” of a proven scholar. My very, very fondest: regards to Ruth and your daughter from Mindy and my family and our sincerest wishes for a happy, blessed, and creative New Year.Cordially yours,Rabbi Norman LammNL/le

Dear Rabbi, One of the sins for which I'll ask God forgiveness this coming holiday is belated expressions of gratitude. But I’m genuinely grateful to you for your letter of July 5, in which you honored me by forwarding your recommendation for my fellowship application, stated your intention to go through the draft to visit with you, pay every visit, ring over Ruth’s article (and mine), and top it all off with some delectable anecdotes concerning the deletion by the UOC of the U form – that’s more than your portion in inter-university Eden. A letter which combines statements of favors done, promises of future hospitality, gracious compliments, and congenial frankness is not common correspondence these days –

Dear Rabbi Lamm, Ruth and I were delighted (almost) at the news of your becoming President of Yeshivah University. I say “almost” because I know how administrative responsibilities can cut into one's time and energies and detract from one's teaching and scholarly (and in your case, rabbinical and homiletic) pursuits. Nevertheless, Yeshivah University, and especially its students and faculty, will be the real beneficiary of your new appointment; I only hope that the enrichment of Yeshivah U. will not lead to the impoverishment of the rabbinate and the world of scholarship. In any event, congratulations and our very best wishes for a successful tenure as President (I wish we had as good a person running for the presidency of our country).Excuses for not answering one’s correspondence always sound limp, but sometimes in this life we have to limp along as best we can. If I am guilty of epistolary neglect, at least it is benign, but I do apologize, especially since when I resurrected your previous letter this week, I also came across the “hand-outs” that you enclosed—Shelley’s *“Dear Master of the Universe”* and “The Master’s” masterful response, and *“To a Hundred and Twenty?”* Yes, we definitely would appreciate your continuing sending us your “handouts,” which we don’t regard as “handouts” but as gifts.I also went back to your many reprints and to the correspondence we have managed to maintain for these last eighteen (significant number, that eighteen) years, and besides renewing pleasant reflections, it made me sad to realize how rarely we've had the chance to see you. Our visits to N.Y. are very infrequent (maybe once a year, primarily on family business), and yours to Springfield are understandably even more infrequent. Perhaps we can, at some not-too-distant date, arrange a mutually convenient time and place; it is a consummation devoutly to be wished (as Shakespeare would say).Once again, Ruth joins me in sending congratulations and extending to you and Mindy ou…

Dear Rabbi Lamm, What a delightful gift our daughter and son-in-law presented us recently – your most recent book: the two volumes of "Seventy Faces: Articles of Faith." (The occasion was our being honored at the annual Kodimoh Israel Bond Dinner – along with nine other honorees from the other area synagogues.) Although some of the material in the volumes you were kind enough to have sent to us before, it was a real pleasure to become reacquainted with it—and, of course, to see the new inclusions that we had never seen before.While I'm reading the articles in one volume, Ruth is reading articles in the other—and we exchange expressions of admiration of your content and style after completing each article.We hope that your imminent (is it really *"imminent"*) \[retirement?] will not curtail your publication of future expressions of your much-needed wisdom. To adapt a clause from William Wordsworth's poem on John Milton, *"Rabbi Lamm, the world hath need of thee: she is a fen / Of stagnant waters..."*I'm taking the liberty of enclosing a copy of a recent article I had published in *MODERN AGE* (not to be confused with Modern Orthodoxy). I apologize for not capitalizing the “M” and “C” in *Modern* and *Centrist* Orthodoxy. I hope you don't find my failure to do so a capital offense!Ruth joins me in sending you and Mindy our warmest wishes.Most cordially,Milton Birnbaum Encl.