The Wolf and the Lamm: A Tribute to a
Fearless Leader
Naso 5780
While the world
continues to reel from the COVID-19 pandemic, and now the USA is rocked by
protests following the death of George Floyd, our Jewish world was devastated
by the passing of Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm zt”l, just 46 days after the death of
his beloved wife, Mindy.
Much has already
been stated and written about the legacy of this great scholar, talmid chacham.
He was a pioneer who saved Yeshiva University from the brink of bankruptcy and
established it as the crown Jewel of the orthodox Jewish world. He was a
revered pulpit Rabbi who served at The Jewish Center in Manhattan for 18 years
before being called to YU’s presidency, and it was from his pulpit there- and
before that, in Springfield, Massachusetts, that he fearlessly addressed the
most important and most controversial issues of the day.
It is
particularly difficult to bid farewell to Rabbi Lamm in a time so tumultuous as
ours, when we could have used his voice and moral clarity more than ever, we
might turn to his voluminous writings, and particularly his sermons, to seek
guidance and enlightenment.
On June 12th,
1976, Parshat Naso, Rabbi Lamm z”l[1]
delivered a poignant drasha on the topic of Peace - noting that the main theme
of the priestly blessing we read this week is שלום.
ישא ה' פניו אליך וישם לך שלום
May Hashem lift His countenance upon
you and may He grant you with peace
The very final
Mishnah in all the six orders of the Mishnah tells us that peace is the most
treasured vessel of all.
אמר רבי שמעון בן חלפתא, לא מצא הקדוש ברוך הוא כלי מחזיק ברכה לישראל אלא השלום, שנאמר (תהלים כט) "ה' עוז לעמו יתן ה' יברך את עמו בשלום"
But what, indeed,
is peace?
Rabbi Lamm cited
a Sifrei[2]
that offers two possibilities.
One opinion is
that of R’ Natan who suggests that Ve’yaseim
lecha Shalom refers to peace and tranquility that would reign with the
restoration of the Davidic dynasty in messianic days.
Rabbi Chanina
Segan, however, offers a less ambitious vision. Peace means peace in the home.
The definition of
shalom as presented by R’ Natan
resonates with many of us. In fact, as
Rabbi Lamm noted:
“Most
of us have been reared on a noble vision: peace for all the world and in our
own times. ... It is one of the most beautiful and inspiring themes to capture
the imagination of mankind.”
Rabbi Natan’s
utopian vision is reminiscent of the oft quoted prophecies of Yeshayahu, Micha
and Amos:
וְשָׁפַט֙ בֵּ֣ין הַגּוֹיִ֔ם
וְהוֹכִ֖יחַ
לְעַמִּ֣ים רַבִּ֑ים
וְכִתְּת֨וּ
חַרְבוֹתָ֜ם לְאִתִּ֗ים
וַחֲנִיתֽוֹתֵיהֶם֙
לְמַזְמֵר֔וֹת לֹא־יִשָּׂ֨א
ג֤וֹי
אֶל־גּוֹי֙
חֶ֔רֶב וְלֹא־יִלְמְד֥וּ ע֖וֹד מִלְחָמָֽה׃ (ישעיהו
ב:ד)
Thus He will judge among the nations
And arbitrate for the many peoples, And they shall beat their swords into
plowshares And their spears into pruning hooks: Nation shall not take up Sword
against nation; They shall never again know war...
זאֵ֨ב וְטָלֶ֜ה
יִרְע֣וּ
כְאֶחָ֗ד וְאַרְיֵה֙ כַּבָּקָ֣ר
יֹֽאכַל־תֶּ֔בֶן
וְנָחָ֖שׁ עָפָ֣ר
לַחְמ֑וֹ
לֹֽא־יָרֵ֧עוּ וְלֹֽא־יַשְׁחִ֛יתוּ בְּכָל־הַ֥ר
קָדְשִׁ֖י
אָמַ֥ר
יְהוָֽה׃ (ס)
The wolf and the lamb shall graze
together, And the lion shall eat straw like the ox, And the serpent’s food
shall be earth. In all My sacred mount Nothing evil or vile shall be done —said
the LORD.
Indeed, it is
this sort of peace that many of us long for today as we grapple with
larger-than-life problems sweeping the country and the planet. Yet it is
strange that it is Rabbi Chanina Segan HaKohanim who advances such a pedestrian
vision, in light of a statement he makes elsewhere-
רַבִּי
חֲנִינָא
סְגַן
הַכֹּהֲנִים
אוֹמֵר,
הֱוֵי
מִתְפַּלֵּל
בִּשְׁלוֹמָהּ שֶׁל
מַלְכוּת, שֶׁאִלְמָלֵא
מוֹרָאָהּ, אִישׁ
אֶת רֵעֵהוּ חַיִּים בְּלָעוֹ.
Rabbi Hanina, the
vice-high priest said: pray for the welfare of the government, for were it not
for the fear it inspires, every man would swallow his neighbor alive.
He is the sort of
person for whom just government world peace and public welfare are all at the
front of his mind. Why didn’t he mention
that here? Why did he shoot so “low,” turning inward for a less glamorous type
of peace? I will let Rabbi Lamm speak for himself:
In other words,
dream big dreams for the world but work on that which is in your sphere of
influence. It is easy to think that, since we are living in a tumultuous world,
we must be on the threshold of a Messianic era in which all our problems will
be solved for us. In a recent op-ed piece[3], Rav
Aharon Lopiansky, the Rosh Yeshiva of the Yeshiva of Greater Washington, put it
strikingly:
When we describe Mashiach
as solving our health issues, shidduch crisis, legal issues, and so on, we are
looking for a solution to a personal issue. Our yearning has nothing to do with
Mashiach; it has to do with our blood pressure, our bank account, the IRS, or
our child waiting for a shidduch.
We can certainly
hope for a transformative age of miracles, but we must continue to work towards
that which is within our grasp. To sit
back and invoke messianism, to dream
about the malchut beit David is not
just an act of over idealization, it is also a copout. It is a lazy way of ignoring the problems
directly under our own nose and in our own backyard.
The issue of
racism is a larger than life problem. It
is that seemingly eternal stain on humanity - we cannot just respond by hoping
for a revolution and praying for a resolution. Instead, we need to begin to
fight this scourge by focusing on our own homes. That means we need to learn to
talk to our children about race, and mind the messages we inadvertently send.
It means we must be prepared to fight injustice in any form, against any person
and any ethnic group. Do we really believe that every person is created in
God’s image, and if so, how does that inform our actions and teachings? Is our bayis free of bias? We spring into
action to picket, protest and post our views, but what happens when we witness
bullying in our children’s school, among co-workers or at a store? Shlom beitecha, peace found in our home, means that peace begins in
our home.
As I watched the
numerous eulogies delivered for Rabbi Lamm this past Wednesday, there were two
distinct stories being told. The Rabbis
and Roshei Yeshiva presented Rabbi Lamm as the public intellectual, the scholar
and the influencer that he was, but the grandchildren painted a more intimate
and poignant portrait. One grandson, Dan
Lamm - a police officer and ex-marine told of the loving support provided by
his grandfather, though he took a decidedly different path in life. And another grandchild, Yali Dratch Faratci,
recounted that moment when she arrived at her seminary in Israel and she found
a series of inspirational quotes on the wall from great-Jewish thinkers, one of
which was from Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm. She
quipped how odd it was to see the name of her zaide as a great Jewish thinker,
for to her, he was a loving grandparent.
The lasting legacy of Rabbi Lamm is not only his fierce intellectualism,
unabashed support for modern-Orthodoxy and his courage to confront the ills of
society - it is also his courage to pursue Shlom
Beitecha a healthy, wholesome home environment.
We are, at last,
in transition between our quarantined life and a return to more conventional
communal life. Let us see to it that as
we venture outdoors, our homes are in good order.
[1] This drasha might have been one of the last
drashot delivered at the Jewish Center in Manhattan, as his tenure as President
of Yeshiva University may have begun around that time. https://archives.yu.edu/gsdl/collect/lammserm/index/assoc/HASH0155/50b442f7.dir/doc.pdf
[2] ספרי במדבר פרשת נשא פיסקא מב
וישם
לך שלום, בכניסתך שלום וביציאתך שלום שלום עם כל אדם ר' חנניה סגן הכהנים אומר
וישם לך שלום בביתך ר' נתן אומר זה שלום מלכות בית דוד
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