Dear Mr. Kemmelman: I hope that your most recent novel is doing well. As one who has helped in a very minor way, I have a "vested interest" in its success. There is a request, forwarded to me, for your appearance, and one which I approve of wholeheartedly. My brother, Rabbi Maurice Lamm, is Dean of Akiba Hebrew Academy in the Bronx. It is a most worthwile and significant school. As part of their program they have an annual Author-Book Luncheon. This year – in late March or April – they would like to have you as their guest.I would very much appreciate your affirmative response. Would you please let me know as soon as possible? If, as I hope, the answer is positive, it might be simpler to contact my brother directly in order to make all the necessary arrangements. He can be reached at 1764 Popham Avenue, Bronx, N. Y.- LU 3-5561 or 878-0166.Many thanks in advance,Sincerely yours,Rabbi Norman LammRNL/fxbe: R. Maurice Lamm

Dear Dr. Neusner: Please accept my thanks for your thoughtfulness in sending me the report on the seminar on "Religions In Antiquity." I found it most stimulating and enlightening. Thanks once again and please remember me when future reports of this kind are available. Sincerely, Rabbi Norman Lamm, RNL/fz

Dear Rabbi, One of the sins for which I'll ask God forgiveness this coming holiday is belated expressions of gratitude. But I’m genuinely grateful to you for your letter of July 5, in which you honored me by forwarding your recommendation for my fellowship application, stated your intention to go through the draft to visit with you, pay every visit, ring over Ruth’s article (and mine), and top it all off with some delectable anecdotes concerning the deletion by the UOC of the U form – that’s more than your portion in inter-university Eden. A letter which combines statements of favors done, promises of future hospitality, gracious compliments, and congenial frankness is not common correspondence these days –

Dear Jeff: It was a thorough pleasure for me to read your informative letter and, knowing of my wife's lively interest in your career, I am taking it home with me because I know she will read it as avidly as I did. Despite my beknighted position as a non-Reform Rabbi, I still am interested in your activities as to impinge on "the vast problems facing the American community as an integrated whole." However, considering the particular nature of your chosen career, my own Talmudic casuistry would incline me to be more concerned about "the vast problems facing the American community as an integrated hole..." I am happy at your progress in dental school, and even more so at your continuation of "learning." If you will manage to do so during these years, you will be able to develop the habit when you have finally come into your own as a full-fledged dentist and as a family man. Speaking of the latter, I do hope that there are some signs of progress. Mrs. Lamm joins me in sending warmest personal regards to you and to your parents.Please keep on writing to me whenever the occasion presents itself. You have no idea how welcome your letters are.Sincerely,RABBI NORMAN LAMM

Dear Mr. Levine: In keeping with our conversation of yesterday, December 13, 1967, I am sending you enclosed a check for $250 In complete payment of the outstanding tuition fee owed by [redacted] for his daughter [redacted], who was graduated last year from the Girls High School in Brooklyn. Thank you very much for your cooperation, and I am pleased that the matter is now closed. Warmest personal regards. Sincerely, Rabbi Norman Lamm.

Dear Mr. Schiller: I trust that your work is progressing well and that you have resolved the major problems in formulating what I know will be a splendid book. I am writing now concerning my invitation which I extended to you over the phone. My seminar class on methodology for writing just the kind of book that you are preparing meets at Yeshiva University on Wednesday nights from 7:15 to 8:45. I have divided the course into two tracks – one dealing with the methods of approaching a research theme, i.e., a substantive challenge to Judaism they must respond to, and a hasbarah approach, i.e., their effort to understand and then persuade their readers of a mitzvah or Jewish concept. It is a small class, and I do not want to burden you with a prepared lecture. What I would like is simply for you to discuss what made you undertake your venture, the kind of problems you are encountering, some of your techniques and methods. The major part of the period should be devoted to the give and take of questions and answers. Please let me know which Wednesday night of this semester you prefer, and I shall be pleased to have you as my honored guest. Cordially yours, Rabbi Norman Lamm

Dear Professor Loebl, I am grateful to you for your warm and generous comments in your letter of October 15. I quite agree with your addendum to the thoughts I expressed in my article – the social sciences are indeed dominated by “natural science envy” in their attempt to act as if they were value-neutral, and your critique is quite trenchant. I very much enjoyed reading your article on “Moral Values and U.S. Policy” in the Spring 1986 edition of Strategic Review. I thank you again for your comments and wish you a very happy and healthful New Year. NL

Dear President Lamm: I was heartened and inspired by your recent article in The New York Times entitled "A Moral Mission for Colleges." You make a very telling point in a wonderfully articulate way and I commend you for your leadership in this important area. The whole matter of declining moral and ethical strength in public and private life, particularly as such a decline indicts educational practices, is a chief concern of mine. I am taking the liberty of enclosing a copy of a talk I gave at the National Press Club not long after the highly publicized A Nation at Risk was issued. Perhaps you will find it of at least passing interest. With best wishes, Jeffrey R. Holland

Dear Dr. Lamm: You are to be congratulated for your October 14th article on the moral mission of colleges. Your statement of the principles contained in your article was long overdue, and it was as clear and concise a message that I have had the pleasure of reading in a long time. As the new Chairman of the Council of Governing Boards in New York State, I was particularly pleased to have the opportunity to reflect on your message and to circulate it to many of my fellow Trustees in the state. We hope to use your article and many of the thoughts contained therein as a foundation for some of the work that we hope to accomplish throughout the state in the years to come.Congratulations and best wishes.Sincerely yours,William F. Plunkett, Jr. WFP/td17 Elk StreetP.O. Box 7149Albany, NY 12224518/436

Dear President Lamm: I read your October 14 New York Times piece, "A Moral Mission for Colleges, with great interest. It was an exceptionally well-written piece, and one with which I disagree deeply. I have written a responding essay, "A Moral Mission for Colleges, 2nd Edition," which I am enclosing for your interest. I have submitted my thoughts to the Times (as well as to our local university paper.) However, regardless of whether it reaches that readership, I wanted to share them with you as well.Should you have any comments, I would be most happy to hear from you.SincerelyBrian G. Zack, M.D. University Physician(609) 452-4451BGZ:msA Moral Mission for Colleges, 2nd EditionBrian G. Zack, M.D.32 Stetson Way Princeton, NJ 98540 (609) 452-4451 - office (609) 924-6391 - homeNorman Lamm's essay, "A Moral Mission for Colleges" (The New York Times Op-Ed Page, Oct. 14) stands desperately in need of rebuttal. The eloquence of his pen and the depth of his feeling effectively disguise an argument which means nothing at best and which, at worst, is a call for moral indoctrination.Mr. Lamm asserts that today's universities are delinquent in not offering their students "moral guidance" and deplores their "permitting a generation of students to grow up as ethical illiterates and moral idiots." He maintains that universities should, and by implication currently don't, "encourage a moral climate that elicits respect for the human spirit," and solemnly declares that "knowledge ought to ripen into wisdom" and that "human beings... are certainly the purpose of education."In what sense is all this to be understood? The non-sectarian colleges and universities of today do not advocate a suspension of morality or teach disrespect for the human spirit. It would be exceedingly difficult to find an educator of any persuasion who felt that knowledge ought not to ripen into wisdom or that the purpose of education was anything but the elevation and enlightenment of human beings. At this level…