Mr. Herbert Tenzer, presiding. Present: Mr. Charles Bendheim, Mr. Marvin Bienenfeld, Mr. Max J. Etra, Dr. Norman Lamm, Rabbi Israel Miller, Mr. Hyman Muss, Mr. Seymour Rosenblatt, Dr. Alvin I. Schiff, Rabbi Israel Silverstein, Mr. Max Stern, Mr. Irving I. Stone, Mr. Max Wagner, Mr. Herman J. Zwillenberg, Rabbis Zevulun Charlop, Herbert C. Dobrinsky, Morris Finer, Robert S. Hirt, Mr. Sidney Schutz, Dr. Sheldon Socol, Mr. Abraham Zeitz. The dinner took place in the succah of The Jewish Center and was followed by a business meeting in the congregation’s board room. Mr. Herbert Tenzer, Chairman, opened the meeting with a greeting of warm congratulations to Dr. Norman Lamm, member of the RIETS Board, on his recent election as the third president of Yeshiva University. He pledged the full cooperation of this Board to meet the challenges ahead shared by RIETS and the institution. Mr. Tenzer expressed the thanks of the Board to trustee Max Stern, who, as president of The Jewish Center, was the gracious host in the synagogue’s succah and board room. Mr. Charles Bendheim, recently elected member of the RIETS Board and a trustee of the Board of Yeshiva University, was welcomed to his first meeting. Special occasions, as noted later, were recognized with appropriate remarks by the chairman. As the first item on the agenda, the nomination of Rabbi Norman Lamm, a musmakh of RIETS, as the new president to succeed the late and revered Rabbi Samuel Belkin, was placed before the Board of Trustees by Mr. Herbert Tenzer and was seconded by Mr. Max J. Etra. Rabbi Lamm was elected as president of RIETS by unanimous acclamation. Rabbi Norman Lamm was asked to greet the members of the Board in his capacity as president of RIETS. He thanked the Board for the confidence they had expressed in him by investing him with this major responsibility and pledged to strengthen RIETS so that it could continue its illustrious role as the spiritual fountainhead of Orthodox and rabbinic leadership in t…

Sunday, the Seventh of November Nineteen Hundred and Seventy-Six at one o’clock in the afternoon Yeshiva University Danciger Campus, Main Center Amsterdam Avenue and 185th Street New York, N.Y.

For the past year, I had hoped that the imbroglio caused by the tasteless personal remarks of a student speaker at the 1994 law school commencement exercises, concerning his homosexual relationship with some other person, would die down and so avoid a "desecration of the Name" by being aired publicly. After all, the number of students involved in homosexual groups in some of our graduate and professional schools is ludicrously minuscule —some 20-30 students out of a population of some 6,200—and it is the student government, not the university, that pays for and decides which groups may use which rooms for their meetings. These individuals gather for purposes of discussion. In this they are no different from other extracurricular student organizations in these schools devoted to singing or music or art or whatever, matters not necessarily related to their academic work. Moreover, there are no substantive halakhic issues per se involved here that should have impelled us to take action. But the issue has not disappeared, and, indeed, it has been exacerbated by misleading articles in the press; among them was one comparing Yeshiva to Notre Dame, which failed to emphasize that Indiana has no law constraining such groups, whereas Yeshiva is in New York and is bound by different laws. I have therefore reluctantly concluded that while silence was mandated heretofore, we must now, by the same token, declare ourselves forthrightly. Yeshiva University is, for an American Jewish institution, rather venerable: it is 109 years old. For the majority of its life, it has been an academy that combines Jewish studies and worldly disciplines— Torah Umadda or, as its name clearly suggests, both a yeshiva and a university. Because of this combination, it is a historic, even unique, entity. It is a complex thing, with interwoven and interacting parts, and balanced with extreme delicacy, and therefore cannot be understood without adequate reflection as to its essential nature and mission.…

Rabbi Simcha Elberg called me today to inform me that someone had stolen a piece of stationery of the Agudath Harabbonim and on it written a letter condemning me and YU for the gays issue at CSL. Rabbi Elberg assures me that this was done not only without his permission but without his knowledge as well. (He had previously told this to Rabbi Charlop who informed me about it earlier this week.) He then told me that he had received many calls to intercede with me; amongst them were people who wanted to put an issur on us... He asked if he could, together with a small committee, talk with me .rbout it.My response was that right now 1 am in the middle of working on the problem and that I would give his request consideration after Shavuot. He said he was satisfied with the answer and would tell people that he couldn't reach me this week and next week was already too late...If I do decide to meet witn him, I should insist that the committee come to me, and not allow myself to be dragged to them.

I. The Infallibility of Jewish Leadership? In recent years Jewish leaders have been publicly accused of actions that do not befit the assumed ethical code we expect from our rabbis, teachers, and leaders In many of these cases the media provided the information to the public and the facts remained unclear. Although, everyone wakes up for a scandal, peoples lives are on the line and there is a great potential for Chillul Hashem.What is our responsibility in finding out and becoming active in such scandals?How do the concepts of Dan L 'Ka\’ Zechm/ChiUiil HaSh^in, and Lashon Hara factor in?Q>Regarding the Organization?Regarding the implicated individuals? 'Should we hold a Yeshiva responsible for alleged actions of an individual within that Yeshiva? (4)Does communal responsibility of maintaining the Shem Tov of an organization and its overall values and goals, take precedence over publicly dissecting its every flaw ?(3)What if a Yeshiva heard rumors about one of its best staff members?* What is the obligation of the Yeshiva in researching these allegations? What is the Yeshiva’s obligation of making such knowledge public? If the yeshiva feels the individual’s behavior was improper, is it enough to remove the individual from the Yeshiva or do they have to make it known that such an individual should never work with kids again?"דן אח כל האדם לכף זכות״—לא naivete אלא הכרח מטעם שג׳ בני יששכר: צמצום ידיעת ה׳חלול ה,: ברכות יט ע״ב״־־אר׳י א״ר: המוצא כלאים בבגדו פושטן אפילו בשוק, מאי טעמא אין חכמה ואין תבונה ואין עצה לנגד ה׳ כ״מ שיש חלוה״ש אין חולקין כבוד לרב." (מחלורת רמב״ם (אפ׳ בגד חברו אם הוא שוגג) ורא”ש־דוקא שלו—ותלוי בגי׳ "בבגדו" (=אבל לא של חברו)]לה" ר—i.e., no juicy recounting sordid details, up-to-date inside dope...be strict!Only if yeshiva encourage oretailed t take action>rcvg reliable reports if malfeasanceYes. Public “dissection” NG—except if failed egregiously to take approprt action t correct sitn oblign yesh allegations: yes, if some evidence.oblig yesh m…

Tolerance verses Intolerance: Since coming back from Israel, Chaim has felt uncomfortable in his family surroundings. He finds the talking in shul intolerable and his family's level of observance weak. Chaim starts arguing with his parents about Halachic issues. His parents can’t understand why they should change just because he went to Israel for a year. Where is his Hakarat Hatov?How should Chaim approach his parent’s lack of concern for Halacha' Chaim's brothers look up to him. He feels that they should know that the house is not really kosher. How should he approach these other family membersChaim would rather live at home but is starting to feel that living away is the only answer. Is this true?2. Menachem has just come back to America after spending the past two years learning in Israel. His roommate at YU has Hashkafic views that Menachem feels run against his concept of Halacha. Menachem is frustrated He doesn’t want to cause tension with his roommate and just ignores these issues. Overtime, this creates a distance between the roommates. The roommate now feels that Menachem has a holier-than-thou attitude and is starting to resent him for it.How can Menachem be more accepting of his roommate, when his views are,counter everything Menachem believes in?One thought Menachem has is to split up with the roommate and find a roommate who s views are more similar. Maybe, he wonders, it is better to stick to my own type of people and just avoid those with differing views?Should this be one’s philosophy of life?In this midst of a hot sugya Ben's maggid shiur begins to attack reformed Jews. The shiur perks up and the Rabbi begins with their practices but goes on to single out members of the reformed movement and the Israeli government calling them Reshaim and ending off "Yemach Shamom” (May their names be erased). This has always bothered Ben, who feels we should love all Jews. He feels that some statements made by the reformed movement are intolerable but cannot acce…

As our undergraduate student body begins the second semester of the year 5760/1999-2000, it is a pleasure to greet you with what I hope is some sound advice. This advice is encapsulated in the two words of the title of this article. Let me explain. One of the great luminaries of pre-World War II Lithuania, R. Hayyim Shmulevitz, once told his students of his youthful days when he learned in the Yeshiva of Grodno. For a brief vacation, he went to visit the yeshiva of Navahrdok, headed by his uncle, R. Abraham Yoffen. In the Bet Midrash, he asked his uncle, "who is the best student in this yeshiva?" His uncle pointed to one young man engrossed in his studies and said, "he is the most profound of all." Then he pointed to another, also bent over his tome of the Talmud, and said, "he is the most industrious—the greatest masmid, of all." And so he identified several of the most prominent bachurim, praising each for his special qualities—such as piety, range of knowledge, etc. But the nephew pressed on, saying, "yes, but who is the best of all?" Whereupon R. Yoffen pointed to one young man in the corner of the room. "But if so, why didn't you mention him amongst all those you singled out?" The uncle answered: "you're right, but his qualities overshadow all the others, because he is the mevakesh, the 'searcher' of the student body." In the course of the years, this "searcher," who never ceased to search for God, for the truth of Torah, was none other than R. Yaakov Kaniefsky, one of the dominant gedolim of our times in Israel, known as "the Steipler."This quality of restlessness—intellectual, spiritual, psychological—is the key to great achievement. Those who train themselves to sacrifice rest and leisure to approach the truth—in any area, any discipline—while those who ask no in order to keep up the endless search, to keep looking, will more likely than not succeed in their aspirations. Those who are too lazy to ask questions, along with those who presume to have all the a…

In an article which I was commissioned to write for the Encyclopedia Judaica Year Book – 1974 on “Judaism and the Modern Attitude to Homosexuality,” I wrote: Under no circumstances can Judaism suffer homosexuality to become respectable... In remaining true to the sources of Jewish tradition, Jews are commanded to avoid the madness that seizes society at various times and in many forms – while yet retaining a moral composure and psychological equilibrium sufficient to exercise that combination of discipline and charity that is the hallmark of Judaism.Now, more than two decades later, after much tumultuous change in the temper and tone of society, I subscribe to these sentiments no less surely than when they were first enunciated.Nonetheless, I will do nothing to compromise Yeshiva University's integrity as a non-sectarian university as that is defined by legal statute, nor will I do anything that imperils the existence of the University, which is Jewry's most original and grandest educational contribution to American culture and society. By the same token, I cannot be unmindful of its authentic Jewish origins and the moral vision that brought it into being. I will never condone but will always deplore what, for me, is an indelible blemish upon that vision nor will I grant it any more than the law requires.