Dear Colleague, I hear that you delivered a beautiful sermon of tribute to President Kennedy yesterday at the Jewish Center. Of course, by now I am not at all surprised when anyone brings me information concerning your sermons. I have yet to listen to any one of them that was not top rank. With all good wishes, I am cordially, Rabbi Harold H. Gordon.

Dear Mr. Michael: Thank you very much for your reprint of Rabbi Lamm's eulogy. It is a most touching document and reawakenws all the anguish of our national tragedy. It must be a privilege to worship with Rabbi Lamm. With many Thanks. Sincerely yours, Abram Kanof.

Dear Norman: Thank you very much for your thoughtfulness in sending me a copy of your recent sermon touching upon the demise of the late President Kennedy. Your sermon was excellent and quite touching. Yet, the heightened solemnity of the occasion in reference to the man, his position, his ideals and his strivings and accomplishments makes language – to paraphrase one of your statements – a woefully inadequate instrument of communication pertaining to the many nuances of feeling attached to this particular situation. Words truly fail here. We are all fine and we trust this finds you, Mindy and the children in the best of health and spirits. With warmest personal regards from all of us, I remain Sincerely, Irving Mehler.

Dear Mr. Michael: I am enclosing a bill from the printer for the preparation of "The Sun Has Set," the sermon I delivered the day after the assassination of President Kennedy. I am always grateful to you when you sponsor such publication of my talks, but this time I am especially appreciative. I have never had so many demands for copies of the talk. As a matter of fact, I have no more than one half dozen copies left, because of the requests that were made for them. If my words had any effect, I would like you to know that it is you who is responsible for giving them circulation and the ability to be heard. I suggest the check be made out to The Jewish Center, and we will then pay the bill accordingly. I need not tell you that I hope and pray every day for the recovery of Mrs. Michael and the restoration of all members of the family to complete and happy health. Cordially yours, Rabbi Norman Lamm

Dear Mr. Feldheim: Please find enclosed a copy of "The Sun Has Set," the sermon I delivered the day after the assassination of President Kennedy. I am also enclosing copies of several other talks which you requested. Warmest personal regards, Sincerely, Rabbi Norman Lamm.

Dear Rabbi Lamm: Only after our return a few days ago I found your manuscript of your deep-felt and excellently worded eulogy of my dear brother ז"ל. When re-reading the text I was as deeply moved and impressed as when I was listening to you during the memorial service. Mrs. Kisch and I wish to convey to you the expression of our sincere gratitude. I take it for granted that I have your permission to include your eulogy in a memorial pamphlet which I intend to have printed privately for distribution among the family and friends.With kindest personal regards and all good wishes,Cordially yours,Guido Kisch

Dear Dr. Lamm: Fate has placed each one of us in the uncommon position of learning not only from you and your dear brother and sisters the true meaning of devotion to parents but has granted us the unique opportunity to benefit from the wisdom of the extraordinary individual towards whom your reverence was so understandably and appropriately directed. Thus, even as we are saddened and diminished by the passing of your beloved father, Mr. Samuel Lamm, we feel a sense of gratitude to the Almighty for the privilege of having known, learned from, and loved Mr. Lamm. And since we are too far away from your family during this week of shivah to reflect with you personally, we thought there would be, hopefully, some value in expressing our feelings and thoughts in this written form. Ida saw in your father both the qualities of humility and unassumingness. Whenever she would visit Mr. Lamm at his Riverdale residence, he would remark: “Ida, what are you doing here?” He always projected his true sentiment that he was grateful for her concern and made her feel special (his smile said it all!) even as he was truly surprised that a fuss was being made over him. Gladys saw in your father an unqualified sense of honesty and integrity. She recalls that when your parents still lived in Brooklyn, an opportunity arose where in dealing with a city official, a little “white lie” would have helped promote their case. She reports and was moved by the reality that “Mr. Lamm did not know how to lie. It was foreign to his nature.” Jeffrey saw in your father the personification of the dictum that respect flows to him that treats others with the utmost respect. Whenever Mr. Lamm would see Jeffrey, at the home or in the office, he would always greet him with “Hello, Dr. Gurock,” despite Jeffrey’s protestation that this 92-year-old man call someone 50 years his junior by his first name. Mr. Lamm dismissed that complaint with, “I respect what you have earned.” We hope that the teachings of humili…

Dear Florence: I paid a shiva call today to Robert and Judy. While the occasion was so very, very sad, it was good that we could experience a reunion and invoke some very happy memories (Elise and Gascon walked in towards the end of our visit). That was the easy part. This letter is the truly hard part. How is it possible adequately to console a loving mother over the death of a son? (And David was widely acknowledged as lovable, so I can imagine the depth of your feelings towards him). I remember vaguely babysitting for Judy and David when I was a college student. At the time I believe you lived in Washington Heights (or was it Riverdale?) and I had not seen or heard much from him in the course of the years except for a brief encounter at the 50th yahrzeit of our grandfather (incidentally – tonight and tomorrow are his 54th yahrzeit!). A few months ago, however, I was pleasantly surprised to receive an email from him, one in which he revealed some very serious religious stirrings. His questions were real, not artificial or simple-minded at all; they testified to a growing spiritual sensitivity that I had not suspected from my very superficial acquaintance with him. I marveled then, and I do now, at how much he had grown intellectually and spiritually. I wonder how he would have turned out had the Angel of Death not poked his crooked nose into his affairs and prematurely snuffed out his life. But such questions are fundamentally unanswerable. The conjecture reveals more about us than about him. And his demise has to be faced with an appreciation of who he was, what he was, how he had ultimately turned his life around quite heroically, and not only what he might have been or become. Florence, you have every reason to be proud of him, even as you have every reason to mourn for him. I understand – and got the impression from my all too short encounter with him – that he was a warm, decent, loving and honorable person. That cannot be said of so many others without sac…