Dear Rabbi Lamm, I have just had the great pleasure of reading your Torah Umadda. I very much enjoyed reading a book that presented a spectrum of viewpoints in Torah thought, as opposed to championing one brand as the only genuine approach; I enjoyed your creative approach to Hasidic thought, and your comparative analysis of that and Rav Kook's approach; I enjoyed your bold and radical formulations, and that you did not allow a fear of misinterpretation to blunt your analysis (and, similarly, that you did not allow the spirit of apologetic reactionism to smother your thought); and I enjoyed the fact that your intellectual analysis was not intimidated by the greatness of the men you discussed (I found your characterization of R. Hirsch's approach as "bourgeois" especially interesting, because when I was studying in Monsey's Ohr Somayach some years ago, I one day realized that the yeshiva was espousing a view of life that I then termed "Torah bourgeois.") I have been lately moved to characterize Orthodoxy as the use of lies to support truth, and I found your book, in regard to this, singularly refreshing and un-orthodox - i.e., honest Torah conceptual thought characterized by integrity and substance. This is not to say that I agreed with everything you said, but rather that I agreed with the spirit in which it was said. In regard to one of the concerns that I felt your book hinted at, I would like to ask you the question: What is emunas chachamim - in regard to Chazal, through Rishonim and Achoronin, and to our day? I have asked this question in right-wing circles, where this concept is stressed so dogmatically, yet no one I have spoken to has known (or seemed to care) exactly what it is; in fact, I was sometimes given the impression that asking exactly what emunas chachamim is constitutes lack of it. (One rabbi responded, "It will make you happy to say that Rashi made a mistake?") For me, this is not an academic, theoretical question. It is central to my concerns, a…

Dear Lamm, I very much enjoyed speaking with you last Wednesday, and appreciate the time you took out from your busy schedule. Afterwards, I had some thoughts about Torah education that I'd like to set before you as speculations, not as recommendations or criticisms regarding Yeshiva University. In the quote from Likutei Halachot that I mentioned that cries out against secular learning (R. Nosson of Nemirov, "Choshen Mishpat," p. 100), R. Nosson denounces making Tanakh a major focus of one's learning; instead, he recommends that students study in the traditional manner, concentrating on Talmud and poskim, with only a little Tanakh learning. Also, I recently spoke with someone who mentioned that traditionally the vast majority of Jews were ignorant, and that only the few (principally those from wealthy families) were able to learn (even in Vilna, as you point out in Torah for Torah's Sake, most people were ignorant). This leads to the simple conclusion that the traditional model of learning recommended by R. Nosson is predicated on having only a small elite of scholars. However, in present-day society, where almost every religious Jewish child receives at least an extensive introductory education, such a model can be irrelevant, if not harmful. Furthermore, this is also connected to an idea that we were discussing — i.e., the integration of all aspects of life into Torah, rather than the older tendency to, in R. Steinsaltz's words, formally recognize only limited areas of one's life in terms of Torah ("Human Holiness," in The Strife of the Spirit). I would like to point out what I mean with the analogy of an engineering school. Imagine a society which is dependent for its physical survival on having expert engineers; and which is capable of training only a small cadre of elite intellectuals. The leaders of that society will therefore set up a system of education in which engineering is the raison d'etre of learning, in which universities teach almost nothing but eng…