... A restless Lithuanian yeshiva talmid, student, who was my friend. Dr. Belkin. He also dreamt. He also became a visionary – let me tell you, Dr. Belkin’s standards of lamdus, of halakhic scholarship, were very high. He dreamt of a generation of young American Jews who would combine both an excellent Torah education with the capability of participating in the scientifically oriented and technologically minded complex American economy. However, Dr. Belkin had another dream. And this second dream was bolder, more daring than the first dream. This was his original dream. No one shared his opinion, not even people who were very close to him – he wanted to show the Jewish, as well as the non‑Jewish community, that the Orthodox Jew is as capable of establishing scientific, educational institutions as the non‑Jew or the secular Jew is. The above are excerpts of the eulogy delivered by Harav Joseph B. Soloveitchik at Dr. Belkin’s funeral, April 20, 1976. Norman Lamm Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm, former spiritual leader of the Jewish Center of New York and Erna and Jakob Michael professor of Jewish philosophy at Yeshiva University, was recently invested as Yeshiva’s third President following the passing of Dr. Belkin. We are deeply honored to print Dr. Lamm’s essay and we feel it is a fitting addition to this journal dedicated in memory of Dr. Belkin. "By Word, on Parchment, in Stone" – An Appreciation of Dr. Samuel Belkin, z”l. Torah is taught by word, on parchment, and in stone. The divine revelation is transmitted in three different ways: by means of the Oral Law; by means of the Written Law; and by means of engraving, such as that on the Tablets. Even as this is true for divine teaching, so is it true for human education as well. The teacher is one who, by profession, emulates God – he realizes the principle of imitatio Dei. Just as God is a teacher, so is the human educator. I wish to follow the rubric of these three ways – by word, on parchment, in stone – to offer a brie…

Dr. Norman Lamm – at age 48 the newly elected President of Yeshiva University – brings to office the vigor of Jewish tradition nurtured in American soil, a profound scholarship in Torah, philosophy, arts, humanities, and sciences – as a chemist turned rabbi – combined with an eminent ability to relate his erudition pertinently to problems of contemporary life. Rabbi, philosopher, teacher, and author, his appointment is the culmination of an 8-month endeavor of the 50-member Presidential Search Committee – comprising YU faculty, administration, alumni, students, and community and academic leaders – to find a successor worthy of the revered Dr. Samuel Belkin z”l and his distinguished predecessor Dr. Bernard Revel. In books such as The Royal Reach: Discourses on Jewish Tradition, Faith and Doubt, and A Hedge of Roses: Jewish Insights into Marriage and Married Life, Dr. Lamm earned international distinction in bringing the perspective of traditional Judaism to a wide range of themes – including ecology, laboratory-created life, space exploration, extraterrestrial life, violence, privacy in law and theology, and the effects of social change on marriage and family. Twice cited by the U.S. Supreme Court – once by Chief Justice Earl Warren and once by Justice William O. Douglas – and called upon as an expert on Jewish law by the Senate Judiciary Committee, Dr. Lamm also emerged as a respected voice in bioethics and medical halakhah. A founding member of the Association of Orthodox Jewish Scientists and a member of the Halakhah Commission of the Rabbinical Council of America, he has served on numerous communal boards and lectured in nine countries across five continents, including Israel, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. He received his BA summa cum laude from Yeshiva College in 1949, pursued graduate studies in chemistry at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, was ordained at RIETS in 1951, and earned his PhD in Jewish philosophy from the Bernard Revel Graduate…

Wednesday, August 4, 9 a.m. The President's Suite on the fifth floor of Furst Hall came to life. A vibrancy of actions, motion, ringing phones, footsteps reverberated through the hallways, sending waves of movement and energy throughout the YU complex. Dr. Norman Lamm, 48 years old. American born, alumnus, moved into his post as third President of Yeshiva University. Major changes in any institution just don't happen overnight: months of planning, days and nights of work, and countless hours of effort went into choosing a new chief executive officer and pre­paring for his taking office.On July 13 the Presidential Search Committee delivered its report to the Board of Trustees as charged. On August 3 the Board’s Presidential Search Committee in turn reviewed the University­wide Committee's recommendation at a special meeting. After its approval, the full Board voted unanimously to elect Dr. Lamm President."Yeshiva University, with its 7,000 students, needs the vigor of mind and spirit of Dr. Lamm,” said Max J. Etra, chairman of the Board of Trustees, in making the announcement. "Of the people under serious consideration, all men of achievement, intellect, and accomplishment, the Committee leaned towards a younger, dynamic leader who would provide long term leadership for the institution and who would be able to confront the pressing problems of higher education today."We enter our tenth decade with the conviction that with the help of the Almighty our new President will continue in the great tradition of his distinguished predecessors, Drs. Bernard Revel and Samuel Belkin, and guide the University to new heights of service and excellence," Mr. Etra said.Introducing Dr. LammDr. Norman Lamm brings to office the vigor of Jewish tradition nurtured in American soil and a sensitivity to YU's strengths and needs gained as analumnus and faculty member. He combines a profound scholarship in Torah, philosophy, arts, humanities, and sciences — as a chemist turned rabbi — with t…

Trustees’ Selection Of Lamm Ends Search Committee Role: The naming of Dr. Norman Lamm as the third President of Yeshiva University culminated a long and difficult process of selection by the Presidential Search Committee, headed by EMC Dean Jacob Rabinowitz. During, the eight-month search, the fifty-member committee screened fifty-seven nominees before submitting its recommendations to the YU Board of Turstees.. These recommendations led to the Board’s unanimous selection of Dr. Lamm.The fifty members of the Com-mittee represented the various un- dergraduate and graduate divisions of the university, and outsiders chosen to present perspectives on the needs of the university in the area of communal services. A smaller fifteen member work com- mittee, chosen from the full Search Committee, undertook the difficult task of advising and setting guidelines for the main committee.To profile the president Yeshiva needed, the work committee pre- sented the full committee with a list . of thirty-five possible quali- fications for a YU president and asked the members of the full committee to signify the im- portance which they accorded each by ranking each on an “A" to “F” scale. “A” represented absolutely essential qualifications, and “F” represented those of no import- ance. Although the thirty-five-item list included such criteria as scholarship, academic position, and contacts in the Jewish and sec- ular world, over ninety percent of the committee’s members designat- ed dedication to academic excel- lence, concern for the religious cen- trality and tradition in the Univer- sity, leadership qualities, and sen- sitivity to moral issues as either ab-solutely necessary or extremely im- portant qualifications.״Fund rais- ing, interestingly, was not con- sidered to be of major significance.Rabbi Rabinowitz stressed the fact that the Board of Trustees took no part in the selection until they received the committee’s recom- mendations on June 30. He said that, “At no time did the…

Over 1800 members of the ad­ministration, faculty members, students and friends of Yeshiva University gathered on Danziger Campus on November 7, 1976, to honor Dr. Norman Lamm on the occasion of his investiture as the third President of Yeshiva Univer­sity. The event was the culmination of a year-long search for a new President of the University to suceed Dr. Samuel Belkin, Z”l. Dr. Israel Miller, Vice President of YU, praised the genius and talent of Dr., Lamm’s two predecessors, Presidents Belkin and Revel, and referred to Dr. Lamm’s ap­pointment as a “new volume” in YU’s history. “He is one of our own,” stated Dr. Miller, citing Dr. Lamm’s own past experiences as both student and teacher at Yeshiva University.Miriam Kopeiman, a 1976 graduate of Stern College and presently a itrst-year student at Cordozo law school, expressed her approval of Dr. Lamm’s ap­pointment, as a representative of the YU student community. She praised Dr. Lamm’s talent for un­derstanding the problems of the contemporary Jewish woman declaring that through his efforts the two worlds of Torah and Madra are combined in unity and synthesis. Speaking on behalf of the student body, Ms. Kopeiman expressed the warmth, respect, and trust which she holds for Dr. Lamm.Also representing his fellow students at YU, Larry Eisenberg, a 1975 graduate of Yeshiva Univer­sity and presently a second-year medical student at the Albert Ein­stein College of Medicine, ex­pressed his admiration of Dr. Lamm as the personification of the philosophy of Torah and Mada which are the ultimate goals of the University. Mr. Eisenberg elaborated upon the problems which face Dr. Lamm as he enters his new position, and expressed his optimism that Dr. Lamm will sue- cessfully attack the challenges which await him.The New York State Com­missioner of Education, Ewald B. Nyquist, delivered a lighthearted but sincere speech praising Dr. Lamm and warning him of the tremendous odds which he will face in his new position. Now, says C…

Several months ago, in a “Special Message to the Yeshiva University Community,” I described the steps that the University has taken to assure fiscal stability. I also told of how the University has been attempting to restructure its debts, and of the difficult ongoing negotiations with our lending institutions. I was encouraged by the reaction to that letter. The candor of my message elicited appreciation, concern, and promises of support no matter which route the University would be required to take. I therefore turn to our YESHIVA UNIVERSITY family with a second message. I am most pleased to report that on Monday, July 14, YESHIVA UNIVERSITY executed a series of historic agreements with our secured and unsecured lenders, which provide for a comprehensive debt restructuring plan of the University’s long and short term debt. This plan, approved by the Board of Trustees on July 8, has been formalized, documented, and made a matter of record. This essential phase of our program to assure the financial stability of the University has been consummated through negotiation. We have, in effect, taken a firm and secure step into the future. 2 The agreement, the result of nine and a half months of effort by University Board members, administrators, and public officials will, if successfully implemented, allow the institution substantially to discharge its debt and to continue relatively debt-free for the foreseeable future. It represents one of the greatest challenges and opportunities YESHIVA UNI- VERSITY has ever faced. If we seize the opportunity and rise to the challenge, we can become free at last of the crushing burden of huge monthly financial obligations which have sapped our strength and enthusiasm. Basically, the success of the debt restruc- turing effort and the significant benefits to be derived from the agreement rest upon the University’s ability to remit some $35 million by the Spring of 1982. The first payment of $5 million was made July 14, 1980, when the a…

The theme of social responsibility is one of the foundations of the Jewish heritage which informs the ethos of Yeshiva University as an American University under Jewish auspices. In this millenial tradition, each human being is regarded as unique, infinitely precious, and irreplaceable. This assertion of human worth places on all people the obligation to respect the autonomy of other persons and to seek effectively to enhance their lives both as individuals and as members of society. Moreover, it obligates society as a whole and its various institutions to inculcate these and related values in succeeding generations.Yeshiva University accepts the challenge of this magisterial function. It aspires to impart to its students not only technical knowledge, the facts of culture, and the spirit of critical inquiry, but also to educate them in the underlying moral structure of Western civilization and, especially, its Judaic component, in which such knowledge and such inquiry best flourish in a manner most meaningful to their lives and destinies.Such an approach, which was once unexceptional in American higher education, is not at all popular today. But we are convinced that the asseveration of the academy's responsibility to offer its students moral guidance marks us not only as a relic of a more naive and less complex past, but also as the harbinger of an even more complicated, more dangerous, but perhaps wiserfuture --one in which sensitivity to moral values, openness tospiritual dignity, and emphasis on conscience will be seen as abetting rather than as detracting from the intellectual enterprise which is the major function of the university. If indeed the academy is a "market place of ideas, " it is good to remember that even the most convinced of capitalists considers some regulation as necessary for the market place itself to survive.In its comparatively brief history, Yeshiva has exemplified this ethos in a number of ways. Thus, in founding the Albert Einstein Coll…

Over 1000 people, including Yeshiva University rabbis, faculty members and students attended the funeral of Samuel Lamm, father of Dr. Norman Lamm, president of Yeshiva University. The funeral service was held in Nathan Lamport Auditorium, on the uptown YU campus on October 21. Mr. Lamm died on Friday. October 19, 1990 at the age of 92. Mr. Lamm is survived by two sons, two daughters. 13 grandchildren and 31 greatgrandchildren. His wife. Pearl Lamm, passed away on July 3, 1990. Eulogies were delivered by three of Mr. Lamm’s grandsons and by his sons, Rabbi Maurice Lamm, President of the National Institute for Jewish Hospice in Los Angeles, California and Dr. Norman Lamm.The first eulogy was given by David Lamm, the eldest grandchild He spoke of his grandfather as a person who “in a world where so much of what we learn is by the 'do as I say' methods, he learned from his Zadie, the ‘do as I do’ method." He concluded by thanking his father, uncle and aunts for passing onto his son the tefillin of his grandfather to be presented at his son's Bar Mitzva.Dr. Joshua Lamm, son of Dr. Norman Lamm, spoke of his grandfather as "his hero." He mentioned the attention, patience and love Mr. Lamm showed to his wife throughout her last illness despite her deteriorating condition, comparing it to "ahava she'eno tluyah b'davar" (love not contingent upon anything). "His biggest regret was that as he started to lose his sight, he couldn't read chumash and Rashi. He would sit with a magnifying glass and a large print chumash for as long as he could."Delivering Ute third eulogy, Jay Auslander, son of Lamms daughter Miriam, apologized to his mother for his inability to express himself about his grandfather. "I can't define him for to define him is to limit him and his abilities were without bounds." He then read aloud a letter written to him by his grandparents before his marriage. Concluding, Auslander said, "so there you have it. my grandfather, my hero, my Zadie."Dr. Maurice Lamm beg…

The name "yeshiva" combined with "university" often seems to perplex people unacquainted with the history, background, and mission of these two venerable institutions. Most people in our society know what a university is, but their knowledge of a "yeshiva" is often cursory and, usually, based upon stereotypes — most of which are long outdated. How, they wonder, can there coexist in a single institution one department (the university) which stands for critical thought and pushing ahead on the frontiers of knowledge, and which prides itself on its universal concerns, with another (the yeshiva) which seeks to preserve an ancient way of life and is mostly confined to the Jewish people and religion? As a result, when hearing about Yeshiva University they are either puzzled or amused, as if the very name is an oxy moron, a contradiction in terms. Yet in over a century of its existence, and over fifty years of its having attained official university status, Yeshiva University has proven that the two are not a contradiction and, even if often divergent in mission, style, and purpose, they are ultimately compatible. The purpose of this brochure is to elucidate this relationship and introduce you to the reality that is Yeshiva University — surely one of the most unusual schools of higher education in the universe of universities, and most certainly unique in the history of the institution called "yeshiva." The Yeshiva — What Is It? The yeshiva (plural: yeshivot) is the oldest institution of higher learning in Judaism. As such, it may well be the oldest form of formal higher education in the world. The earliest yeshivot we know of flourished in both Palestine and Babylonia in the century before the Common Era. By comparison, universities began to coalesce into formal schools only in the late Middle Ages. So inseparable is the idea of higher formal education from the fabric of Judaism, that Jewish legend maintained that, in earliest Biblical days, Abraham sent Isaac to study i…

I have always been intrigued by the phenomenon of Chol Hamoed. For here, in both the name for and substance of the intermediate days between Yom Tov Rishon and Yom Tov Acharon of Pesach and Sukkot, we find a reflection of our own lives and Weltanschauung. Consider the very term: Chol = profane, secular; and Moed = festival, sacred. And the halakhot of these days continue the same theme – part Yom Tov, part weekday. Most forms of melakhah are prohibited, yet those involved in the preparation of food are permitted. Also, those which are forbidden are sometimes tolerated in certain cases of dire need. And even then we must dress in a manner befitting a holy day. Indeed, it seems that what the Talmud (Pes. 68b and Beitzah 15b) says about Yom Tov itself applies even more aptly to Chol Hamoed: "Half for you, half for God," i.e., the study of Torah – it is a mixture of both the human and the divine, a hybrid of the holy and the profane. I remember reading, in the name of the great Gerer Rebbe, the Chiddushei HaRim, that the ability to embrace both, to comprehend the Chol and the Moed simultaneously, is an avodah kashah – a most difficult task – and that is why Onkelos, in translating the verse "And Moses spoke (va-yedabber) the festivals of the Lord to the Children of Israel," used the word ve’alifnun, "and he taught them." Why was it necessary for Moses to teach the festivals instead of enumerating them? Because of the inherent challenge of combining both the sacred and the secular. It is not unusual to aspire to complete devotion to either one of the two – all sacred or all profane – but the Almighty asks more of us. There are indeed times when we must concentrate all our energies and talents and interests in one direction, but the major part of life must be an application of Chol Hamoed – of the two in consonance and synergistic cooperation with each other. Moses, who was Ish haElokim, one who combined both the manly and the Godly, was ideally suited to teach the less…