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The Arrogance of Modernism - article (1969)

Modern Orthodoxy Combating Assimilation
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A Response to Noah Feldman (2007)

Dear Prof. Feldman, my first – and last – impression after reading your extremely well-written New York Times Magazine essay (more properly – a manifesto) is one of sympathy for your predicament, respect for your honesty, and profound sadness at the community’s misfortune when one of our best and most well-known yeshiva day school graduates sees nothing wrong with “marrying out.” Worse: you wittingly or unwittingly exposed your coreligionists to opprobrium in arguably the world’s most public forum – even as you express admiration for the Jewish tradition, especially for Modern Orthodoxy. True, we no longer “sit shivah” for a relative who married out. But all of us experience poignant anguish when a brilliant and once fully committed son of our people, who earnestly believes he is not rejecting his upbringing, effectively does just that in justifying his transgression and holding us up to ridicule. And why so? Because you violated a major principle of Judaism and yet object when we, your fellow Jews, express our heartache in one of the only ways open to us. Quite simply, my dear Prof. Feldman, you want to have your cake and eat it too. Sorry, but that just can’t be done. Frankly, your resentment at the removal of your name and photo from the alumni list of your high school and other such petty discourtesies does not elicit much sympathy from me. Tantrums do not move me. I am moved by your resolve to continue your relationship to Judaism. And I value your suggestion that we reexamine our attitude to the social ostracism we have practiced heretofore. We certainly will not accept the violation of the law with equanimity, but we ought to rethink how we can express our displeasure in a manner that will not close the doors to teshuva – if indeed the couple wishes to take advantage of it. Apparently, you take the matter of intermarriage lightly – something on the line of eating non-glatt-kosher meat. If so, you are sorely mistaken. True, one can make a case that out-marria…
Modern Orthodoxy Combating Assimilation

Article

Crisis of Modern Orthodoxy (1969)

Sir – A news report in your August 1 issue concerning my views on “Modern Orthodoxy’s identity crisis,” was accurate in summarising my position on the need for “Modern Orthodoxy” to interpret its outlook religiously and unapologetically. Your editorial on the subject, however, misstates my view’s vis-a-vis the differences of opinion that prevail in England. While I appreciate your flattering remarks, I fear that your concluding paragraph vitiates the kind things you said about me. Any objective person who is acquainted with my views and those of Rabbi Louis Jacobs will be astonished to learn that “Rabbi Lamm’s thoughts are almost a paraphrase of the approach of Dr. Jacobs which made him unacceptable to our Orthodox Establishment.”I suspect that Dr Jacobs will take exception to this assertion equally with me. I have consistently in- sisted that Judaism must be based upon the halachic commitment and the acceptance of Torah min ha-shamayim, and have opposed Franz Rosenzweig’s approach per- mitting a subjective selection of which laws and observances to per- form. For this reason I am clearly “ Orthodox,” and am so affiliated, whereas Dr Jacobs has apparently abandoned this position and has so indicated by his membership in the Conservative movement’s Rabbini- cal Assembly.There is no need to belabour the issue. To be critical of Orthodoxy does not and should not make one’s Orthodoxy suspect, nor is it grounds for declaring one’s views a “ paraphrase ” of one who is dissociated from this community. Indeed, without in any way com- mitting Dr Jakobovits to prior approval of my opinions, I feel that the Chief Rabbi would not dis- agree with my contention that our engagement with the world, and particularly our involvement in higher “ secular ” education, should be based- on a solid reli- gious basis rather than on undigni- lied vocational excuse.I regret that my views, which you apparently found worthy enough to bring to the attention of your readers, should have been obf…
Modern Orthodoxy

Article

Modern Orthodoxy's Identity Crisis (1969)

The facts about our community, as represented by the Orthodox Union, are rather encouraging. Numerically and institutionally, in terms of youth and influence, we are a significant group in this country. But we are beset by many problems. And our thorniest and most disabling problem is, curiously, an “identity crisis” – perhaps a sign of our youthfulness as an ideological movement. Objectively examined, what binds us together as a separate entity is our full commitment to the Torah tradition and our openness, at the same time, to the wider culture of the world about us. To use the two dreadfully inadequate words which normally describe us as a distinct group, we are both “modern” and “orthodox.” I shall be using these terms only with the greatest hesitation. “Orthodox” is almost pejorative; it implies a stifling and unthinking narrow-mindedness. And “modern” is amusingly pretentious; it adds nothing to the validity or invalidity of a proposition. Jacques Maritain recently referred to this as “chronolatry,” the idolatry of what is newest or latest in time. But while this observation is true enough as it goes, it does not go nearly far enough. Merely to describe what we are is not a sufficiently convincing reason for being what we are or for persuading others to acknowledge our rightness and join our ranks. The great problem of modern American Orthodoxy is that it has failed to interpret itself to itself. This failure, which reveals itself in many ways, derives from a remarkable intellectual timidity which we should have long outgrown. One should not be too harsh in judging the past. There were reasons – good reasons – for our apologetic posture. But it was humiliating. In confronting the outside world and those to the left of us, we seemed to be saying that while we hold on to the practices and doctrines of the Jewish tradition, we are really just like everybody else, perhaps even more so. We appeared to be whispering, in unbecoming shyness, that we were not really …
Modern Orthodoxy