4.6 • 620 Ratings
🗓️ 25 June 2020
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
On May 31, 2020, American Jewry lost a giant. Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm, the longtime president of Yeshiva University (YU), was one of the nation’s foremost defenders Orthodox Judaism and exponents of the Torah U’Madda—Torah and secular knowledge—philosophy that animates Modern Orthodoxy.
His passing was followed with an outpouring of remembrances from friends, family, students, and admirers. Most of them, appropriately, shined light on Rabbi Lamm’s remarkable career as a turnaround artist. He inherited the leadership of Yeshiva University on unstable foundations and saved the flagship institution of Modern Orthodoxy.
But writing in Commentary, Rabbi Meir Soloveichik focused his remembrance on something else: Rabbi Lamm’s career as a congregational rabbi before his leadership at YU. As Soloveichik reviewed Rabbi Lamm’s many speeches and sermons, he concluded that Lamm was “the greatest composer of sermons in the English-speaking rabbinic world.” In this podcast, Rabbi Soloveichik joins Jonathan Silver to discuss the basis of that judgment, and what Rabbi Lamm’s legacy of rabbinic oratory models for today’s pulpit rabbis. They focus especially on two of his most impressive sermons: “The Fountain of Life” and “Confessions of a Confused Rabbi.”
Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
0:00.0 | Last month, American Jewry lost one of its giants. |
0:11.3 | Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamb, longtime president of Yeshiva University, was one of the nation's |
0:17.2 | foremost defenders of Jewish orthodoxyy and exponents of the philosophy that |
0:22.0 | animates modern orthodoxy, its educational vision, its congregational life, and its institutions, |
0:28.4 | the philosophy known as Torah Umada, Torah and Secular Knowledge. Welcome to the Tikva podcast. I'm your |
0:34.9 | host, Jonathan Silver. The passing of Norman Lamb inspired |
0:38.8 | an outpouring of remembrances from friends, family, students, and admirers. Most of them, |
0:44.6 | appropriately, shined light on Rabbi Lamb's remarkable career as a turnaround artist. He inherited |
0:50.6 | the leadership of Yeshiva University on unstable foundations, and he more or less |
0:55.7 | saved the flagship institution of modern orthodoxy. |
0:59.4 | That Rabbi Lamb could save and strengthen that important institution? |
1:03.5 | Dianu, achievement enough. |
1:06.1 | But writing in commentary, Rabbi Mayer Silvecik focused his remembrance on something else, on Rabbi |
1:12.2 | Lamb's career as a congregational rabbi before his leadership at Yeshiva University. As Rabbi |
1:17.9 | Soloveitch reviewed the many speeches and sermons that Rabbi Lamb gave week in and week |
1:23.4 | out, he came to conclude that Norman Lamb was the greatest composer of sermons in the |
1:28.4 | English-speaking world. Today, we discuss the basis of that judgment and what Rabbi Lamb's |
1:34.2 | legacy of rabbinic oratory models for today's pulpit rabbis. If you enjoy this conversation, |
1:40.3 | you can subscribe to the Tikva podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, and Spotify, |
1:45.3 | and I hope you'll leave us a five-star review to help us grow this community of ideas. |
1:50.2 | I welcome your feedback on this or any of our other podcast episodes at podcast at |
1:55.0 | tikfafund.org. And of course, if you want to learn more about our work at Tikva, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Tikvah, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Tikvah and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.