Dear Rabbi Lamm, I would like to express my appreciation and heartfelt thanks for the articles that you have written in 'Tradition' during the last few years, which I came across about 4 months ago. I found in your articles an intense awareness of the spiritual problems that puzzle the modern Jew who, even if he is deeply committed, is still very conscious that there is much that has to be discussed and explained in the idiom of the age. The tenor of the articles in 'Tradition' in general and your articles in particular, is one of intellectual and spiritual candour. They display an attempt to deal articulately and in depth with the implications and perplexities of being a Jew in a rapidly changing world. In short, making Torah relevant to modern living at every level. I would be most grateful if you could elaborate a little on the theme you developed in your article 'The Unity Theme its implications. I will return to the relevant point later on.Perhaps, as background to my question, I should tell you a little about myself. I left high school five years ago at the age of 19 and, after much parental opposition, eagefly went to Gateshead Yeshiva. At that time I was very mixed up and thought that my new experience would be the panacea .I must admit that I did benefit from my stay in Yeshiva. I learnt some Talmud, made many friends and was exposed to an atmosphere of dedication and piety. But that is where it ended. I found instead of my doubts and questions diminishing, as I had been assured by many well-wishers, they became more numerous, searching and fundamental. I sometimes found that there was a sympathetic rapport between myself and the spiritual mentor, but when my questions became awkward he responded with the usual platitudes e.g. 'To the believers there are no questions, to the unbelievers are no answers,' and 'What can a man know with his finite intellect; unaided reason can not get anywhere.' I must emphasise that I do not say that this approach is complete…

Dear Rabbi Lamm, I was eagerly awaiting your reply and hoped that for once a question of mine would be understood and answered with some depth. I was not disappointed by your prompt reply. You satisfied me completely with your usual articulate presentation. I am truly grateful. As you point out, this particular issue of integrating one’s cultural activities into Avodas Hashem is not really fundamental to my basic religious quest. I would like to mention that I am not the conductor of the L.S.E. orchestra. To have this position one must be able to play several instruments and have a deep knowledge of music, both theoretical and practical. I have a more humble position: as first violin I am consequently called the leader. This involves leading the string section if they get in trouble — they are meant to follow me if they sometimes get lost when, for example, they forget when to come in after a few bars’ rest. This keeps me on my toes throughout the performance of a work. For my efforts I get paid 15 shillings a rehearsal, which happens to pay for my weekly bus fares.As I said in my letter, I get a tremendous kick out of playing and listening to music. Although I can listen for hours to Beethoven’s later string quartets, especially the penultimate one in A minor, I am more spiritually moved by some of the *devekus niggunim* of the Chabad Chassidim. Even though they are badly reproduced on the records that Lubavitch have brought out, I can appreciate the *penimus*, the mystic yearning and spiritual longing that especially characterizes the 10 *niggunim* the *Alte Rebbe* composed. They penetrate into my very being. This is something my father, who is quite musically knowledgeable, can’t see. I answer him that he does just not understand. I look forward to the day when I can attend a *farbrengen* at 770 Eastern Parkway where the singing on festive occasions, so my Chabad friends tell me, is really spiritually inspiring and satisfying.You say that I have experienced a sp…

Dear Rabbi Lamm, I have time just for a short note to extend to you and your family the season's greetings. This period since I saw you has truly been one of turmoil. About [redacted] whom I believe you met while you were in Israel – well, apparently she has turned out to be the exceptional student of this new sem for mature girls (Oy vey!). It is still in the balance with all the agonizing uncertainty that that involves... didn't know that a strong healthy young man like me could suffer so much emotionally from waiting for the lady of my choice. Anyway, I suppose one must have patience for the fairer sex and realise that virtue is not only on one side. She knows I am a bit eccentric and I think it is worrying her whether to take the jump of marriage. All women I suppose want security. Time will indeed tell and in the meantime we both suffer – such is life.Next September I am going to Sheffield to do a post grad diploma in education – a must here after 1972 if one wants to teach in a state school. After that I'll have to wait and see. My stay in N.Y. did not solve all my internal problems and altho' I gained something very special from my yechidus and attending the vabrengen, I still have to relate to the dilemma of my own life. I can't and don't want to shake off my secular skin and adapt an east european weltanshaung and I don't mean this is a pejorative sense. Its difficult to explain in words but thank G'd my Lubavitch friends understand to a degree otherwise I would not be faced with an unbearable either-or dilemma of identity. For the moment I am quiet and keep in the background as much as possible. I think living away in Sheffield will do me good – it will be a challenge in more ways than one and make me more aware of what I am.I received a letter today from my teacher Rav Carmel who is now in Jerusalem and has set up together with a Rabbi Horovitz a special yeshiva for western type students. He mentioned about the effects of dew years of solid learning woul…

It was an unexpected surprise to be invited to join the J.F.S seminar at Carmel College. Nearing the end of my second term at L.S.E. it came as a welcome and pleasant break from my local studies to spend Shabbat in the company of a friendly and intelligent group of sixth formers. The food excellent, the accommodation good, the singing and davening was inspiring. Above all, the atmosphere that fevered the seminar was a most enjoyable experience that I shall always remember.I don’t know how learned one can be as a Jewess today. This is the real challenge—detached from the problems of culture and science. Whether … I do believe, and such views will have their place.As for the question of education’s greatness—it is concerned with the lives impacted, not just presentation.The students in this session were stimulated, compelled in their own minds to explore, and I personally hope that this vital topic will come alive. It is not enough to live by rote or by custom. There was not real opportunity to communicate all the points raised—nevertheless I feel that the core was achieved.I would like to think further, but for now Torch also refers to how one absorbs the biblical sources that shape vital identity in our age.---A gleam of light follows:Perfecting the condition of the physical world is of utmost importance. God is acutely concerned with the human situation in society, as a brief perusal of the prophets will reveal. Life is full of contradictions, paradoxes and tensions. Any thinking person faces conflicts—between the demands of one’s inner and outer life. If one concentrates on the former, one may lead a stunted, ghetto-like existence. If one follows the latter to extremes, one loses all sense of identity with one’s Jewish spiritual heritage. The ideal is the synthesis—but this requires the maturity to see the forest and the trees on both sides, a perennial challenge.Thus, as to the Torah’s message to the world: we must first understand what it means to us—in the tot…

Dear Rabbi Lamm, I trust you are well. I was reading over my last letter to you recently, and I felt perhaps it was rather aggressive and even a little rude. I apologise and I hope this is not the reason you have not yet replied. Besides the Lubavitcher Rebbe, you are one of the few rabbis I can respect and to whom I can look for some guidance and inspiration. Intellectually I am very lonely here in England. Without intending to be arrogant, I am able to talk with scientists about science, philosophers about philosophy, Halakhists about Talmud and halakhah, and artists about art. But I also want someone who can correlate and synthesise all these disciplines into one magnificent unity. Am I expecting too much?I do not know if I mentioned that I have composed some music which is an expression of my experiences over the last few years. I have been told that in parts it sounds like Bartók and in others like Stravinsky! I would love to arrange it for a quartet or quintet. I have an especially lovely theme for the cellos and violas floating about at the back of my mind. There is only one catch: I do not have the technical know-how to notate and arrange the music.This again illustrates the point that it is not enough to have intuitions and feelings. There is a need also for a discipline, a technique and ability to express one's true potential. Only in this way can it become manifest. Similarly with Halacha and the discipline of daily living.I just don't have time to study music really seriously. One cannot do everything one would like to, but even this doesn’t mitigate the frustration. The only consolation is that I can play my piece, which is still in a state of flux over four basic themes, on my violin and my sister's viola.I hope it is not an imposition asking you to write when you have time. I again apologise if I was rude. I am an angry young man, but I hope not for a lost cause!ntn

Dear Rabbi Lamm, Thank you for replying so promptly. I am sorry for imposing but I am glad to be reassured that our correspondence will continue. I am enclosing two small articles that I have written recently for publication and part of a letter to L. Jacobs. I would welcome any comments you may have. The letter to Maurice is a response to a rather critical letter he wrote in the Sussex University Jewish society magazine 'Exodus' after a talk given by my dear friend Smuel Lew. His theme was the irrelevance of מעשי המצוות & the narrowness of Judaism. Like every "with it" student, he came out with the superficial cliches that instead of worrying about donning Tephillin, we should concern ourselves with the true problems of life like Vietnam. Its the usual stuff students talk about, often to evade the responsibility of daily living which, by comparison(is not nearly so exciting – doesn't this comment sound rather reactionary!? Anyway,I have since met Maurice – he is a charming chap – and we had a nice long chat and we are good friends. Last week he went to Lubavitch centre to arrange for the sale of his Chametz and to collect some hand-baked matza. How's that for quick work?I was invited to speak at a weekend at Carmel College for 30 six formers from the J.F.S..Manny Klein is an orthodox teacher at the school and he organised the seminar and asked me write an 800 word article for the school magazine.The extract from a letter to L. Jacobs elicited no reply. He usually replies within about a week but the correspondence between us has since continued on other topics. It seems he doesn't want to discuss this particular subject by letter. I felt I had to tell him exactly how I felt about a number of his opinions.I am also including an article reprint written by Rabbi Lew some time ago. I would like to tell you about my attitude and attraction towards Chabad in some future letter. Although it doesn't completely satisfy me, I do derive tremendous inspiration from the Der…

Dear Rabbi Lamm, I trust you are well and hope after this long absence you have not forgotten about me. Very much has happened in the last nin months so that really I don't know where to begin. There is so much I want to say about my experiences in Yugoslavia and my inner growth and development that perhaps I must save it up until I meet you one day. I hope to be in New York in the summer to see the Rebbe and perhaps I’ll see you then.I thought you may be interested in a summary of the report about the Yugoslavian trip that I made for WUJS and a copy of a short letter I wrote to the Rebbe just after I returned. We still keep in touch and WUJS is sending another group this year. My memories are so exhilarating but sad. My experiences were stimulating to an unimaginable degree and yet when I reflect especially on the situation of the 2 Czech students and 6 Rumanians and the look in their eyes when we finally said farewell, I feel terribly spiritually on edge, a numbness, a feeling of insignificant impotence. The discussions I had late at night with a most refined sensitive soul from Zagreb who was so ashamed about his ignorance of Judaism; the mature student from Sarajevo who was born amongst Tito's partisans in the woods and had hadno Bris etc., etc., all these memories fill me with both joy and sadness. I'll have to writ a book one day. Even now when I talk about what was also a wonderful holiday, I soon become high and talk with Hislahavus about Klall Yisrael.I also enclose a little article I had published about Chabad. It was in response to a rather negative letter that the editor asked me to reply to in 250 words. My involvement with Chabad has developed slowly but surely since I last wrote to you. The more I learn for myself in the original Yiddish and Hebrew texts, the more I became amazed about the depths that exist within the Jewish tradition. In fact I feel annoyed that for so long I was deprived of the philosophy and poetic approach of Chabad. One hears so…

Dear Michael: I cannot tell you how very pleased I was to make your acquaintance during your recent visit to New York. My family was as delighted as I – an impression confirmed when we replayed the violin piece you allowed us to record! Now as to what to make of the discourse on Lekh-Lekha – your "favorite sichah" – of the present Lubavitcher Rebbe. As I mentioned to you over the phone, my first impression was that the idea was a put-on, a mere semantic juggling of traditional Habad nomenclature, far more mystifying than enlightening. I must be honest with you: I am still not 100% sure that the idea is really valid – but I think the effort is, at least, a worthy and intellectually honorable one.The problem, basically, is that of divine omnipotence vs. Free Will. Given the radical immanentism of Hasidism, the divine omnipotence must be taken for granted. If there is, in an ultimate sense, no reality other than that of God, certainly His power is not only perfect and absolute, but also exclusive; no other power exists. But this must include moral choice as well, the power to decide and execute a life of Torah and Mitzvot. However, if the decision in this realm is attributed to God, it loses its volitional character, and hence is no longer what it must be: a free act.The Rebbe tries – or so it appears to me – to solve the problem by an analysis of the divine Will, the instalment of His power. He distinguishes between the inner and outer aspects of the divine Will. The "outer" will is that of the divine governance of the natural universe. Here the relation between Will and existence is clear, determinate, coercive and in a one-to-one correspondence. There is no question of freedom or accident or chance – all is the product, directly, of the divine Will. But man's moral life (what the Rebbe calls his life of Torah and Mitzvot) is the realm of inwardness, and

Dear Michael: Mrs. Lamm and I are grateful to you for your post card and your letter containing a number of "Torah thoughts" from Lubavitch. I re-read them with great interest. I say: "re-read," because I get them directly from "headquarters." Unfortunately, I could not go to the י"ט כסלו celebration last night because I was lecturing elsewhere in the city. I know that to a devotee of your conviction this is a very lame excuse indeed, but I hope you will recognize that there has to be someone who, though sympathetic, is outside the camp, in order that all of you who are inside the camp can shine by contrast. Do let me know how you are getting along. My entire family joins me in wishing you a very pleasant and Happy Chanukah-and we look forward to seeing you again in the not too distant future. Cordially, Rabbi Norman Lamm

Dear Rabbi Lamm, greetings from Sheffield! I trust you and your family are well. I am settling into my new environment and am enjoying it. Two years ago Yugoslavia, last year N.Y., this year Israel, now Sheffield! I hope the constant movement between such different worlds will be a creative process and experience. Sheffield is a beautiful town in the Midlands with small but highly Jewish community. Many things that have been dormant within me now become more active once I have removed from any town past a few academies. The nature of provincial impossibility of pursuing committed orthodox Halacha is the problem to experience if it is isolated. Even more familiar milieu especially if the surrounding activities are not by any means completely unattractive. I won’t bore you with the obvious dilemmas but it has made me acutely aware of the significance of the policies of Torah while we miss sufficient services to live in a complete physical and mental growth…