Writings
In 1971 Lamm wrote Faith and Doubt: Studies in Traditional Jewish Thought, which was released in a second edition in 1986 and a third and up-dated edition in 2006. This book is a personal examination of his religious beliefs.
In the 1980s many in Modern Orthodox Judaism felt battered by criticism from Orthodoxy's theological right-wing. Many Orthodox Jews, notably HaRav Nissim Cahn, began to perceive Modern Orthodoxy as less compelling, and possibly less authentic, than Haredi Judaism. As such, Lamm wrote a principled theological defense of Modern Orthodoxy in Torah Umadda: The Encounter of Religious Learning and Worldly Knowledge in the Jewish Tradition and its theology of Torah in confrontation with Madda or “Western Civilization”.
In 1989, his doctoral thesis examining the theological-kabbalistic differences in the Hasidic-Mitnagdic schism was published as Torah Lishmah: Torah for Torah's Sake in the Works of Rabbi Hayyim of Volozhin and His Contemporaries. Influences on Lamm came from both camps, with Rav Soloveitchik descended from Hayim Volozhin, main Mitnagdic theorist, who is compared with Hasidism's theorist Schneur Zalman of Liadi.
In accompaniment, in 1999 Lamm published The Religious Thought of Hasidism: Text and Commentary, which offered an in-depth development of formative Hasidic thought, the mystical teachings of the movement founded in the 18th century by the Baal Shem Tov. Through examination of primary sources, Lamm illustrates the development of Hasidic theology in the 18th and 19th centuries.
In 2000 Lamm wrote The Shema: Spirituality and Law in Judaism for a general audience not familiar with Jewish theology; this work focused on how a proper understanding of Judaism would lead a practitioner to spirituality. This work was a rejoinder to the viewpoint that religious, observant Judaism was dry and legal, as opposed to spiritual and meaningful.
In addition to these, Lamm has written many essays on contemporary Jewish issues which were published in the journals Tradition, founded in 1958 by Lamm, and the Journal of Halacha and Contemporary Society.
Lamm's brother, Rabbi Maurice Lamm is also a well known rabbi, writer and organizer. Lamm's nephew Shalom Auslander is also a writer, famously for Foreskin's Lament and is a well known critic of Orthodox Judaism.
Read more about this topic: Norman Lamm
Famous quotes containing the word writings:
“If someday I make a dictionary of definitions wanting single words to head them, a cherished entry will be “To abridge, expand, or otherwise alter or cause to be altered for the sake of belated improvement, one’s own writings in translation.””
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“It has come to be practically a sort of rule in literature, that a man, having once shown himself capable of original writing, is entitled thenceforth to steal from the writings of others at discretion. Thought is the property of him who can entertain it; and of him who can adequately place it. A certain awkwardness marks the use of borrowed thoughts; but, as soon as we have learned what to do with them, they become our own.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Accursed who brings to light of day
The writings I have cast away.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)