Dear Rabbi, Thank you very much for yours of April 30th, 1961 and the snapshot enclosed therewith. It may sound insincere if I am to mention once again that we are all more than grateful for the interest shown by the UOJCA and particularly to you for reporting favourably on our behalf, even though we are full of faults and lack the true spirit of cooperation. Yet one thing is certain, and that is we all have a great yearning to know more of our religion and to be as good and Torah-true Jews as our counterparts elsewhere, if not better.It was kind of you to suggest that we could select two students in the place of Shelim and Jonathan. Before we make the selection, we shall, however, try and persuade Shelim and Jonathan to accept the scholarships by informing them of the proposed enhanced salary to be paid on being ordained as Rabbi and on completion of the Hazanut Course respectively. I have been in touch with the young man who is offered the New York Yeshiva scholarship. I shall get him to apply for required forms forthwith. I suppose it will be better if I forward these to the University with a covering letter.With regards to our requirements of books, etc., I wonder if Dr. Weiss could be requested to forward immediately 20 copies each of Chumash and the Code of Jewish Law in English for the benefit of those congregations which need it most and are not in possession of the same. I may mention here for your information that the United Synagogue of India has received a number of copies on Kashruth Laws for free distribution. Our desire, on the contrary, is to secure from you detailed instructions on Kashruth Laws and have these translated in Marathi and published in one of the issues of *Mebasser*. Incidentally, I must remember to submit our request to Dr. Weiss for further funds for the continuation of the publication of *Mebasser*. As you are aware, Mr. Isaiah helped us in typing and taking extracts from different writings for our paper. This saved us the expendit…

To: Mr. A.D. Jhirad, From: Dr. Samson R. Weiss, Subject: Addition to Old Cemetery. Concerning your inquiry about the use of the old cemetary for additional graves, please be informed that Rabbi Lamm discussed this matter with the appropriate Halachic authorities who agreed with him on the following ruling: You state that the average height of the coffin is 15 to 18 inches. Therefore, the same height of additional earth must be placed on top of the old cemetary. Then, new graves may be placed on this cemetary by virtue of this additional layer of soil.cc: Rabbi Norman Lamm

Dear Jay: I do not know how to begin this letter. I just read of the terrible news in the Springfield Jewish News and called Lou Izenstein immediately. Mindy and I are still reeling from the impact of the shock. How contradictory and antithetical the very thought of death is to all Lillian was. Lively, vibrant, dynamic, blessed with a gracious vigor, hers was the kind of personality one quite naturally assumes is immortal. One never associates such people with anything but the tempo, rhythm, and excitement of life itself.Although we were not in contact with you since you left for Florida and we for New York, we thought of the two of you often. And whenever we did, the memory of Lil’s liveliness and loveliness suffused us with the warmth of old friendship reawakened, if only for a few precious moments. Tears, certainly, but words are a poor and utterly inadequate substitute for her presence. Yet I know that she would have, in her characteristic fashion, dismissed all excessive eulogizing and extravagant emotions as unnecessary and undesirable.You’ve lost a lot, Jay, but few people have drunk as deeply from the cup of happiness as have you and Lil. Legions of men would gladly trade in all of their future for but a slice of your past. G-d blessed you with a wonderful and no one can now deprive you of your precious and blessed memories. May they be, for you and your children, a source of everlasting strength and comfort.Sincerely,RABBI NORMAN LAMM

Mrs. Kennedy is deeply appreciative of your sympathy and grateful for your thoughtfulness.

Dear Natalie: I had fully intended coming to visit you on Sunday, but circumstances developed so that I was unable to pay you a condolence call. Words, of course, fail me completely in trying to convey to you the very real sentiments of grief that welled up within Mindy and myself when we heard the terrible news, and have still not abated one bit. Anything I can say, therefore, must fall far short of what I really believe and feel. I trust that you will accept our silence — as your father so eloquently put it at the funeral services — as representing our sentiments far more than words.With all his energy and love and boundless enthusiasm, he lived twice as intensively as most others during the few years that the Almighty granted him. I hope that his memory will be a source of strength and inspiration and consolation for many years to come.While I am sure that many others have told you this, I hope you will accept it as being meant in utmost sincerity: if there is anything in any way that we can do for you, please do not hesitate to call upon us.Sincerely,RABBI NORMAN LAMMNL

Dear Mr. and Mrs. [redacted], Although writing and talking is supposed to be my stock and trade, I confess to very great difficulties in writing this letter. I was shocked much beyond words and grief-stricken beyond any expression by the terrible, dreadful news of the premature death of your beloved boy, ע״ה. Your feeling of loss needs no confirmation by myself, nor will it do much good for me to affirm our total ignorance in the face of what fate dealt you. Having known him during his formative years, having loved this precious child and always having had the warmest feelings for his parents, I suppose that I am one amongst the many who shared such affections to remain helpless in trying to offer my consolations.It does no good to try to seek explanations at a time of this sort. No answers really suffice; no questions are really relevant. All of Jewish thought and tradition teaches us that the period of mourning was instituted not to increase grief but to express it and to get it out of your system; to learn — however hard the lesson might be — to reconcile yourself with the new facts; above all, to talk out all your hidden feelings and to devote your energies, dreams, and ambitions to the life that is ahead of you and your family.It is quite normal over such occasions to think back to the things we did that we think we should not have done, and to those things we did not do which, in retrospect, we think we should have done. Especially in the case of a child, such thoughts plague the mind and destroy whatever peace we seek for ourselves.Please, therefore, take the advice of a friend: after having expressed such feelings — and they should be talked out — forget them. It is no use mulling over the past. No human being is perfect. No parent, no child, no brother, no sister. But it is a terrible mistake to allow grief to degenerate into bitterness and mourning into self-accusation.Now is the time to begin that difficult period of reconciliation and of looking to the …

Dear Rabbi Teitz: I have just received a copy of the Hebrew–Russian Haggadah which you printed, ostensibly for American and Canadian tourists. I think the idea is brilliant and the execution superb. I hope and pray that the governmental authorities will not interfere with the discreet distribution of this Haggadah, and that our own people will take major advantage of it. My warmest congratulations upon this achievement. May all of us, according to our differing conceptions of the proper methods but our mutual commitment to the same goal, continue to aid and succor our beleaguered brethren behind the Iron Curtain. My warmest good wishes for a happy and kosher Passover. Cordially yours, Rabbi Norman Lamm

Gentlemen: It is so often that people write to complain that I believe you may find it a welcome relief to receive a letter of commendation. The members of our Ladies Hebra Kadisha have commented a number of times about the splendid cooperation they receive from you when they are called upon to perform their tasks. The helpfulness and dignity impresses them, as it does all of us. They find Rev. Scher to be especially cooperative and deserving of the highest commendation. It is good to know that we can count on you, when the occasion arises, for such a commendable attitude and spirit.Sincerely yours,Rabbi Norman LammRNL/fzcc – Mrs. Joseph Green

Dear Rabbi Goldfarb: Many thanks to you for your most gracious note. I admired and cherished your late father, of blessed memory, and am pleased that you and your sister and all the family were able to detect this genuine feeling in my remarks. I hope and pray that I shall be able to be of service to the family on many happy occasions in the future. Please convey my warmest good wishes to all members of the family, and my thanks both for the sentiments and enclosure. Cordially yours, Rabbi Norman Lamm

Dear Mr. Gelernter: I enclose the material you requested. I attended to it as soon as I received your letter, despite an indisposition which kept me confined to my house. I hope the enclosed proves helpful. Sincerely, Rabbi Norman Lamm P.S. For purposes of identification to the Court you may mention that I am the Rabbi of The Jewish Center, assoc. prof. Jewish philosophy at Yeshiva University, author of articles on Jewish Law that have been quoted in U.S. Supreme Court decisions, and member of the Jewish Law Commission of the Rabbinical Council of America.To Whom It May Concern: I do hereby certify that it is forbidden, according to Jewish law, to disinter the remains of a person in order to rebury him in another cemetery. Whereas Jewish law does make specific exceptions, these conditions are hot satisfied in the case of the deceased Robert I. Gold, whose disinterment is being rweaquested by his survivors. The removal of a body to a “family plot" is permitted only after such an agea has been so designated not by an oral declaration or even contractually, but only by the actual burial therein of a close relative. In the present case, there is no member of the Gold family interred in this new area, and hence Jewish law does not consider a “family plot" such that removal from another grave for reinterment here is permitted.Sources for this decision are:1.R.Ezekiel Landau, “Responsa Noda Bi'tyehudah", Vol.I, Sec. YeDes 89.2. R.Eliezer Deutsch,"Duda'ei Hasadeh", No.6.3. 8.Hayyim Fischel Epstien, "Teshuvah Shelemah", Vol.II,Sec.Y.D.,16.4. R.Jekuthiel Judah Greenwald, "Kol Bo al Avelut" Chap.III, No.6, esp. PPe 234-237,Signed: Rabbi Norman Lamm