In this episode of the TRADITION Podcast our editor R. Jeffrey Saks speaks with Dr. Erica Brown and Prof. Ari Goldman about their contributions to the “Rabbi Norman Lamm Memorial Volume.” They each wrote about aspects of Rabbi Lamm’s written record as a self-styled “unrepentant darshan” one of the Jewish 20th century’s peerless rhetoricians, who turned the synagogue sermon into an art form and used the power of the pulpit to commutate an array of messages and educate his flock in a most impactful way.  They also shared with us how Rabbi Lamm’s teachings helped shape their own religious worldviews and have had profound personal effects on each of them.

Order your copy of the “Rabbi Norman Lamm Memorial Volume”:  https://rabbis.org/product/tradition-norman-lamm-memorial-volume

Dr. Erica Brown is a well-known author and public speaker and a consulting editor at TRADITION. She is the director of the Mayberg Center for Jewish Education and Leadership at George Washington University: www.ericabrown.com

Ari Goldman is a professor of journalism at Columbia University, and formerly the long-time religion reporter for the New York Times and author of “The Search for God at Harvard,” among other books: www.arigoldman.com

 

 

Congregation Rinat Yisrael of Teaneck, NJ, hosted a special Tikkun Leyl Hoshana Rabba remembering the legacy of Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm z”l, and celebrating the publication of TRADITION’s Rabbi Lamm Memorial Volume. Speakers: Rabbi Chaim Strauchler, Rabbi Jeffrey Saks, Yoetzet Halacha Tova Warburg Sinensky, Rabbi Tzvi Sinensky. Order the volume: https://traditiononline.org/rabbi-lamm-memorial 

Watch the video recording of the event at: https://youtu.be/0hbzaeGr6Ew

In this installment of the TRADITION Podcast we present an audio editor’s column with Rabbi Jeffrey Saks’ essay, “A Man of All Spirits: Excavating the Thought of Rabbi Lamm,” read by the author. This is the introductory essay in TRADITION’s recently released “Rabbi Norman Lamm Memorial Volume.” This special issue of TRADITION contains 35 chapters by our community's leading rabbis, educators, and thinkers, exploring Rabbi Lamm’s literary legacy and contributions to Jewish life and learning.

Click here to view the introductory material and table of contents, and to order your copy of “The Rabbi Lamm Memorial Volume.”

“It is very unusual for a scholar to identify a subject of manifestly great importance that has barely been addressed, but Eric Lawee’s recently published Rashi’s Commentary on the Torah: Canonization and Resistance in the Reception of a Jewish Classic (Oxford Univerity Press) has succeeded in doing so” – so writes David Berger, reviewing Lawee’s book in TRADITION’s recent Spring 2021 issue.

Eric Lawee is a professor of Bible at Bar-Ilan University where he specializes in Jewish biblical interpretation in medieval and modern times. Recently he sat down with TRADITION’s editor Jeffrey Saks to discuss the reception history of Rashi’s 11th-century Torah commentary – the most classic work of the most classic mode of Jewish scholarship. They consider how the Commentary came to occupy the place it holds in Jewish life and learning. It could be said that we are students of the Bible (and Talmud for that matter) as read by, and transmitted to us, through Rashi’s commentaries. But was it inevitable that the “hermeneutical canon,” as Lawee calls it, had to develop that way?

Read David Berger’s review of Rashi’s Commentary on the Torah: Canonization and Resistance in the Reception of a Jewish Classic.

Watch a video recording of the conversation on YouTube.

As part of the 2021 convention of TRADITION's publisher, the Rabbinical Council of America, Rabbanit Chana Henkin spoke about the legacy of her late husband, R. Yehuda Herzl Henkin zt"l, exploring the influences that helped him develop into a unique posek and thinker. We are grateful to the RCA for allowing us to share this recording with TRADITION's followers.

Rabbanit Chana Henkin is the Rosh Midrasha of Nishmat.

Rav Yehuda Herzl Henkin zt"l, who passed away in December 2020, was a teacher and posek, and author of volumes of Jewish thought and biblical and rabbinic scholarship, including the multi-volume Shut Benei Banim.

The conversation was moderated by R. Mark Dratch, Executive Vice-President of the RCA. 

Read Yaakov Bieler's review of R. Henkin's Mahalakhim BaMikra.

Read Laurie Novick's assessment of R. Henkin as halakhist.

Read R. Henkin’s TRADITION essays in our archive.

Watch a video recording of this session.

Listen to the recording of the special first Yahrzeit memorial program for TRADITION’s founder Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm zt”l. Introduction by Rabbi Yosie Levine. Lectures by Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, Yoetzet Tova Warburg Sinensky, and Rabbi Ari Lamm. Closing Remarks by Rabbi Ari Berman. (May 19, 2021)

Presented by Yeshiva University, The Lamm Heritage Archives, Rabbinical Council of America, Orthodox Union, The Jewish Center, and TRADITION.

 

Following his passing last November, TraditionOnline inaugurated The Rabbi Sacks Bookshelves Project, in tribute to R. Jonathan Sacks’ impact on the spiritual and intellectual life of our community, and examining aspects of his thought and teaching. Reading R. Sacks’ many books and listening to his lectures, one is not just impressed by his original insights and striking formulations, but also awed by his ability to integrate so many disparate sources. To read his work is to experience a well-guided tour of Matthew Arnold’s ideal of “the best that has been thought and said.” Throughout his writing, R. Sacks quotes broadly from Torah sources. Yet, he also reaches deeply into classical and contemporary writers on philosophy, history, politics, and society, including popular research in psychology, ethics, economics, and sociology.

In this episode TRADITION’s associate editor Rabbi Chaim Strauchler spoke with three of the series’ many authors. They discuss why R. Sacks read and quoted the books that he did and the role those works played in his leadership and philosophy. They look at some common themes emerging from the project and the optimistic view of humanity with which R. Sacks leaves us, his readers and disciples. Our guests for the episode are:

Rabbi Johnny Solomon is a teacher at Midreshet Lindenbaum and Matan, an editor at Mosaica Press, and an educational consultant. 

Dr. Lindsey Taylor-Guthartz is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Jewish Studies of the University of Manchester, and at the London School of Jewish Studies.

Rabbi Dr. Raphael Zarum is the Dean of the London School of Jewish Studies.

TRADITION is grateful to the many authors who participated in the series, and to our partners at LSJS and at the Rabbi Sacks Legacy Trust.

Watch the Zoom video recording of the conversation here.

The most recent issue of TRADITION (Winter 2021) contains “A Halakhic Framework for Decision-Making in Acute Critical Illness” by Judah Goldberg. The article explores the array of complicated decision making in difficult, traumatic times, including end-of-life decision making. This framework will help guide the interactions between physicians, clergy, and the acutely ill patient and his or her family in what are always, even under the best cases, complex circumstances.

Rabbis Hershel Schachter and Mordechai Willig penned a “Rabbinic Postscript” which appears as an appendix to Goldberg’s proposal. 

Rabbi Dr. Judah Goldberg practices emergency medicine at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, at Memorial Hospital West in Pembroke, FL, and is on the teaching faculty at Michlelet Mevaseret Yerusahalayim.

In 1953, Yale theologian H. Richard Niebuhr was asked, “To what extent did religious and specifically Christian convictions influence the development of American democracy; and, to what extent can that democracy be maintained in America, or be reproduced elsewhere, without the aid of such convictions?” In response, Niebuhr put forward a theory of America as a “covenantal community” – a model built on trust and the unspoken voluntary promise on the part of each member of the covenant that every decision one makes will be in the interests of enhancing the commonweal.

Recently Daniel Friedman reflected on the trajectory of Niebuhr’s “covenant” idea and how it influenced the thought of the late R. Jonathan Sacks. Friedman did this as part of our “Rabbi Sacks Bookshelves Project,” a weekly column exploring some of the great writings in western philosophy, history, literature, social science, and more, which left their mark on R. Sacks’ writing. 

Friedman’s essay was authored and slated for publication weeks ago, but the production schedule meant it was coincidentally, perhaps fortuitously, published in the days following the recent unfortunate and unprecedented events in Washington, DC. In light of those events we thought it would be informative to chat with him about civil discourse, and the critical importance in binding the wounds of our society. He recently spoke with TRADITION’s Associate Editor, R. Chaim Strauchler. Together they consider practical applications for the concepts advanced by Niebuhr and R. Sacks in not “othering” our neighbors. 

Rabbi Daniel Friedman, senior rabbi of Hampstead Garden Suburb Synagogue, London, is completing a doctorate on American Christian attitudes to Israel.

Click here to watch a Zoom video recording of the conversation.

The arrival of a COVID-19 vaccine is a long-awaited and blessed development that requires our gratitude to God, and the scientists through whom His work is done, for providing humanity the means to eradicate the pandemic and its deadly effects. In this podcast, R. Yona Reiss explains that vaccination constitutes a mitzva requirement based on the imperative of “guarding our lives” and preventing harm to others. According to halakhic triage rules, it is appropriate for those who are most vulnerable to take the vaccine first, including the elderly. Finally, he argues, we should exercise our obligation to sanctify God’s name by displaying vigilance in preserving and protecting human life.

This episode was produced by TRADITION’s publisher, the Rabbinical Council of America, for its member rabbis, and is being shared with our listeners as a courtesy of the RCA and its executive director, R. Mark Dratch.

For more on the obligation to vaccinate, see our recent article “Halakha Approaches the COVID-19 Vaccine” by Drs. Sharon Galper Grossman and Shamai Grossman.

Click here to watch the ZOOM video recording of this episode.

Rabbi Yona Reiss, a member of the TRADITION editorial board, serves as the Av Beth Din of the Chicago Rabbinical Council.