Norman Lamm (December 19, 1927 – May 31, 2020) was an American Modern Orthodox rabbi, scholar, academic administrator, author, and Jewish community leader.
Lamm's maternal grandfather was Rabbi Yehoshua Baumol (1880–1948), who authored the responsa entitled Emek Halakha.
[5] It was Baumol who encouraged Lamm to leave Mesivta Torah Vodaath to attend Yeshiva College, where Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik would become his mentor.
[1] As a Modern Orthodox Jew, Lamm's theology incorporated the corpus of classical rabbinic Jewish principles of faith.
He argued that the underlying philosophy of Torah Umadda is inspired by the work of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch in the mid 19th century in response to the Enlightenment.
(Some writers have suggested a difference between the two terms "Modern" and "Centrist" Judaism — something Lamm dismissed as artificial.)
"[11] Nonetheless, he has worked over the years to keep lines of communication open between Orthodox and Reform Judaism, in the hopes that Jewish unity can be maintained.
Lamm was a proponent of working with Reform and Conservative Judaism in the now-defunct Synagogue Council of America.
"Valid" comes from the Latin word validus which means powerful, strong–and they are certainly strong and influential Jewish leaders who should be respected for their efforts.
But only Orthodox rabbis can lay claim to "legitimacy," a word which derives from Latin lex, law.
In 1989 and 1990 Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir asked Lamm to help defuse the crisis related to the "Who is a Jew?"
In response to Lamm's suggestion, Prime Minister Shamir appointed Israeli Cabinet Secretary Elyakim Rubenstein, later a member of the Supreme Court, who negotiated secretly for many months with rabbis from Conservative, Reform and Orthodox Judaism, including faculty at Yeshiva University, with Lamm as Rosh ha-Yeshiva.
Many Reform rabbis took offense at the notion that the beit din must be strictly halakhic and Orthodox, but they acquiesced.
Rabbi Moshe Sherer, then the Chairman of Agudath Israel World Organization, stated that "Yes, we played a role in putting an end to that farce, and I'm proud we did.
He stated that had this unified conversion plan not been destroyed, he wanted to extend this program to the area of halakhic Jewish divorces, thus ending the problem of mamzerut.
again arose in the State of Israel, and Lamm publicly backed the Neeman Commission, a group of Orthodox, Conservative and Reform rabbis working to develop joint programs for conversion to Judaism.
However, he goes on to affirm a moderate form of religious pluralism, and holds that Orthodox Jews must accept that non-Orthodox rabbis are valid Jewish leaders, and possess spiritual dignity.
Many Orthodox Jews, notably HaRav Nissim Cahn, began to perceive Modern Orthodoxy as less compelling, and possibly less authentic, than Haredi Judaism.
This work was a rejoinder to the viewpoint that religious, observant Judaism was dry and legal, as opposed to spiritual and meaningful.
Joel had previously been associate dean and professor at Yeshiva University's Cardozo Law School, and was an assistant district attorney in New York City.