Dear Jeffrey, as I told you after your admirable presentation at the Riverdale Jewish Center during Sukkot, I was very much impressed with your shiur on the problem of tefillin on Hol Ha-moed. It was a model of lucidity and organization, and you displayed a superb combination of halakhic analysis per se and the perspective of an historian. You mentioned that you did not have your own copy of the Zohar, so please permit me to offer you a set as a gift. The three enclosed volumes are a spare set of Zohar from our library, which I acquired from them, and I offer them to you along with my very best wishes for success in everything you do. With warm regards to your wife and family, cordially yours, NL

Dear Dr. Lamm: As always it was a pleasure to see you last Shabbat in Riverdale, and I want to thank you for your kind words about my lecture; I cherish your friendship and guidance, and your favorable comments were all the more appreciated. You mentioned your interest in sources documenting the rejection of the nexus of sin and punishment as explanations for the massacres of Rhenish Jewry during the First Crusade of 1096. My major source has always been the crusader chronicles themselves, available in the pocket edition of A. Habermann, Sefer Gezerot Ashkenaz ve-Tzarfat (Jerusalem, 1945). Careful examination of these texts shows a definite incongruence of reaction: while the editors interpolate comments such as mipnei hata’einu, the recorded speeches of the principals speak rather of the privilege of dying al kiddush Hashem. Although the history of the creation and redaction of these texts is problematic, other evidence of the self-image of Ashkenazic Jewry in its “Heroic Age” (as Dr. Agus z”l called it) confirms the authenticity of these sentiments. Classical Ashkenaz was highly self-conscious of its piety and scholarship, and it would be consistent for them to refuse to see their trials as punishment, but rather as a test and testimony of loyalty to God. The acceptance of mass self-immolation, by children and students alike, testifies to this self-image. I have held this view for years, and before preparing my recent lecture I also consulted Alan Mintz’s Ḥurban (Columbia University Press, 1984), which independently reaches the same conclusion. I highly recommend it, although I disagree with Mintz’s downplaying of the Akedah motif in favor of the “Re-Creation of the Temple.” My remarks about Classical Ashkenaz’s self-image are further supported by studies including A. Grossman, Ḥakhmei Ashkenaz Ha-Rishonim (Jerusalem, 1981); J. Katz, Ma‘ariv Bizmano ve-Shelo Bizmano, Tarbiz 35 (1970); H. Soloveitchik, “Can Halakhic Texts Talk History?” AJS Review 3 (1978); and id…