Dear Rabbi Lamm, Hello and shana tova. I’m an admirer of your book Torah for Torah’s Sake, which is useful for clarifying the conceptual disagreements between the Lithuanian yeshiva world and the Chassidic world. I have a question that I appreciate your addressing. On page 146 of your book you quote Rabbi Nachum of Chernobyl quoting the Zera Kodesh who maintains that Moshiach is greater than Moshe and Aharon (שמשי׳ ע״ח). This idea you present as a hallmark of the Zera Kodesh. I see, I think, a resemblance between the Zera Kodesh and Netziv who in Ha’amek Davar (page 196, on Rabbi’s Kriat Shema) also critiques the reason the students of Rabbi Akiva perished rather than Moshe’s, who after all of Sinai’s revelation could not instill the proper qualities of sensitivity and respect in his own students. I don’t know if the Zera Kodesh was influenced by it, especially since the tension can be understood to signify that combining study and deeds goes back a long way, and I don’t know to what the originator owes himself. It just seems to me that the idea by pointing to Moshiach over Moshe again in this way does, in a way, presage the Zera Kodesh. Thank you for your time. Yours truly, Avraham Fischman, POB 110, Efrat Israel

Dear Rabbi Lamm, Hello. I’ve been reviewing the Maharal and I came across a point that I think reflects an idea in your Torah Lishmah (p. 120 page 78 in the Hebrew edition). It seems that perhaps the Maharal shared the perspective of Griz zt"l that you mention in chap. III note 77, that the nissim of Mitzrayim occurred to provide the rationale for the matzot and not the other way around. I found a similar idea as well in מהר”ל (נצח ישראל פכ”ב). I read that you are retiring from the presidency of YU. I hope that freedom from administration will give you more time to write.

Dear Stuart Fischman נ״י: Thanks for your recent letter inquiring about R. Hayyim’s use of נשמוזא דנשמתא. I do not have before me the Sondel Berman edition of the נפש החיים, but any standard text will confirm the changes in gender which you observed. In שער ד׳ פרק כ״ח there are 4 mentions of the term including the possessive (i.e., דילה, דיליה) and 3 without the possessive. Of the first 4, three are feminine, one masculine. Possibly, the change is consistent, in that the three feminines all refer to a feminine noun, such as תורה, סתרי תורה, חכמה; the single masculine refers to Abraham. Overall, however, one can’t make too much of such grammatical changes, because most of our Gedolim of that period (and later too!) were not overly attentive to grammatical niceties. They did not bother with gender distinctions, singular-plural, etc. Nevertheless, it is encouraging to know that people such as yourself study important and sacred works of our Gedolim with such analytic attention to details. ירבו כמותך בישראל! With best wishes for a happy Purim and, shortly thereafter, a חג כשר ושמח, Norman Lamm