Dear Rabbi Lamm: On behalf of the Synagogue Council of America we wish to thank you for the extraordinary contribution you made to the success of our first Annual Synagogue Statesman Award Dinner Sunday night at the Walforf-Astoria. The distinguished audience that was present was deeply impressed by your moving invocation and remarks. We thought you might be interested in the enclosed report on the dinner which appeared in the December 5, New York Times. We will shortly send you several of the photographs taken of you during the dinner.Again, with warmest thanks and deepest appreciation, we are,Cordially yours,Rabbi Marc H. TanenbaumExecutive DirectorRabbi Max D. DavidsonPresidentP.S. ...

Dear Marc: I received this morning the release from the Religious News Service of May 29th concerning your talk in Pittsburgh. While I find that I can, by and large, agree with what you say, I must take exception to some individual features. First, your comment about the Church and Christians needing the decree "in order to restore unambiguously the Biblical and prophetic mode of Christian life and thought." I think it may be gratuitous for us to advise Christians how to restore the pristine purity of their faith. Inevitably, it leads us into complications which are not always foreseen. In this case, it would imply that if the decree is accepted, then we will acknowledge the “Biblical and prophetic” nature of Christian life. Of course, I deny it, decree or no decree. Even without anti-Semitism, Christianity, in the traditional Jewish view, does not partake of the nature of Biblical and prophetic modes.Secondly, I do not share your sentiment that placing the decree within the secretariat for \[relations with non-Christians] will lead to "such great misgivings among many thoughtful Catholics as among Jews." I already expressed to you orally, when we met earlier this week, my feeling that this indeed is the secretariat which should handle the decree, and that, on the contrary, I am keenly suspicious of this decree being placed in the context or secretariat of "Christian unity."My best wishes for a pleasant and healthful summer.Cordially yours,RABBI NORMAN LAMMNL\:ffCC: M. Feuerstein