Sirs: Your August 1 issue, containing a news report and editorial concerning my views on “Modern Orthodoxy's identity crisis," arrived during my absence from New York. Hence, the delay in reacting to your comments. The report was accurate in summarizing my position on the need for "Modern Orthodoxy" (a term I dislike, but for which I have found no adequate substitute) to interpret its outlook religiously and unapologetically. My full statement appears in the May-June issue of Jewish Life. Your editorial, however, misstates my views vis-a-vis the differences of opinion that prevail in England. While I appreciate your flattering remarks, I fear that your concluding paragraph vitiates the kind things you said about me. Any objective person who is acquainted with my views and those of Rabbi Jacobs will be astonished to learn that "Rabbi Lamm's thoughts are almost a paraphrase of the approach of Dr Jacobs which made him unacceptable to our Orthodox Establishments." I suspect that Dr Jacobs will take exception to this assertion equally with me.I have consistently insisted that Judaism must be based upon the halakhic commitment and the acceptance of tora min ha-shamayim, and have opposed Franz Rosenzweig's approach permitting a ‘subjective’ selection of which laws and observances to perform. For this reason I am clearly "Orthodox," and am so affiliated, whereas Dr Jacobs has apparently abandoned this position and has so indicated by his membership in the Conservative movement's Rabbinical Assembly.There is no need to belabor the issue. To be critical of Orthodoxy does not and should not make one's Orthodoxy suspect, nor is it grounds for declaring one's views a “paraphrase” of one who is dissociated from this community. Indeed, without in any way committing Dr Jakobovits to prior approval of my opinions, I feel that the Chief Rabbi would not disagree with my contention that our engagement with the world, and particularly our involvement in higher “secular” education, shou…

Dear Rabbi Lamm, As you may by now have seen, I published your letter in our last week's issue. You make the point that because you accept "Torah min ha-shamayim" and Dr. Jacobs does not, you are Orthodox and he is not. That would be perfectly fine and explicit if we knew what you meant by "Torah min ha-shamayim" since this was the basis of the "local polemics" to which your letter refers. Dr. Jacobs has made his position quite clear but neither your letter nor any other of your writings that I have seen are equally explicit on this subject. I am sure that you don’t wish intentionally to cloud the issues by deliberately vague formulations – indeed meaningless formulations. Would you therefore care to write an article for me, of not more than 1,200 words, on how you define "Torah min ha-shamayim" from the point of view of "modern Orthodoxy" as distinct from the non-modern acceptance of verbal inspiration? I am sure that such an article from you would have more than local interest and would be an important contribution to what I consider to be at the root of what you have described as "Modern Orthodoxy’s identity crisis". With kind regards, yours sincerely, William Frankel.