Halakha and Jewish Thought as One: A Translation of Rabbi Lamm’s Introduction to Halakhot Vahalikhot

Rabbi Lamm is best known as a leading Jewish thinker and the longtime president of Yeshiva University, but he was also an accomplished talmudic scholar. He studied Talmud for many years with his maternal grandfather, Rabbi Yehoshua Baumol, author of two-volume work Emek Halakha, until the latter’s death in 1948. He subsequently studied for several years under Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik at YU. Despite the considerable demands of his rabbinic and administrative career, Rabbi Lamm continued to learn regularly throughout his life.

As president of Yeshiva University, he delivered numerous public lectures commemorating the yahrzeits of his predecessors, Dr. Bernard Revel and Dr. Samuel Belkin. Many of these lectures were subsequently published in Torah journals. In 1990, Mossad HaRav Kook gathered them and other studies into Halakhot Vahalikhot, a collection of twenty-seven Hebrew essays written over several decades. A second volume, entitled Al Harishonim Ve'al Ha'acharonim, was published posthumously by Kodesh Press in 2025.

Halakhot Vahalikhot showcases Rabbi Lamm’s command of classical talmudic analysis while also expressing one of his central convictions: halakha and Jewish thought are not separate realms but distinct branches of a single Torah. In his introduction, he explains the methodology underlying the collection. Roughly half of its essays connect halakhic analysis with aggada, Jewish philosophy, Kabbala, or Hasidism, seeking the fundamental ideas that find different forms of expression in each domain.

Halakhot Vahalikhot is now out of print, but a typewritten and newly-typed copy of its introduction is available on the Lamm Legacy website. More than a conventional preface, it is a concise manifesto for Rabbi Lamm’s integrated approach to Torah study. An English translation of this key work appears here for the first time. I have kept the formating essentially the same, with the exception of the single footnote that appears on the first page, which I have included as a parenthetical comment in the body for ease of reading. I have also broken down a few of the paragraphs into shorter paragraphs, also for the ease of readings.

Tzvi Sinensky

Director, Lamm Legacy

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Foreword

Blessed and exalted be the Creator, who teaches Torah to His people Israel, who has enabled me to compose this book in halakha. I shall thank His great name with the blessing, “Blessed is the Merciful One, King of the universe” – “who has kept us alive, sustained us, and brought us to this time.” (So ruled my master and grandfather, of blessed memory, at the end of Responsa Emek Halakha, vol. 2, when there is doubt whether or not to recite Sheheḥeyanu. He relied upon the words of R. Jacob Emden and Maḥazik Berakha, cited in Shaarei Teshuvah, Oraḥ Ḥayyim 223:3, and also referred to Derekh Pikudekha and the Baḥ; see there. I have found that other great authorities also discuss this question. See Daat Zekenim al haTorah, Parashat Bereishit, on “And God blessed the seventh day”; Sefer Ḥasidim, R. Reuven Margaliot edition, no. 1020; Yam Shel Shlomo, Bava Kamma 7:37; Binah Le'Ittim, discourse 2; Responsa Ḥatam Sofer, Oraḥ Ḥayyim 156; and Haamek She’ela, end of Parashat Vezot Haberakha.)

This book has its origins in lectures, responsa, and articles that appeared in print in several periodicals and various Torah works. In nearly half the chapters that follow, the reader will find connections between halakha and aggada. By this I mean not only aggada itself, but also the mystical tradition of Judaism, Hasidic thought, and the words of the great philosophical thinkers from the beginning of the period of the Rishonim until nearly our own day. I have refrained as much as possible from homiletics. Although homiletics possesses considerable importance in its own right, I have been careful not to mix one category with another.

My intention is to reveal the affinity of spirit and thought between these two worlds and to demonstrate that the great halakhists who engaged in aggadic thought, as I have defined it, were not divided souls, God forbid. Rather, certain fundamental concepts found expression in different forms – both in halakha and in the other fields of Judaism that lie beyond halakha. This is what moved me to call this book Halakhot Vahalikhot.

I ask the reader’s forgiveness as I record several reflections on this matter.

“The ways of the world are His – do not read halikhot, ‘ways,’ but halakhot, ‘laws.’” It seems to me that this “do not read” is an instance of “it is not read as it is written.” It is written halikhot, but read halakhot. This teaches you that halakha embodies within itself the full stature of the ways of the Holy One, blessed be He – of the thought of God, embracing the arms of the world, yet compressed within the four cubits of halakha. Thus, the world of halikhot can be reached only through halakhot. Did not Rabbi Judah Halevi say in his Kuzari: “It is impossible to attain the divine matter except through the divine matter”?

All this is to inform you that the world of thought and aggada is indeed a “world,” worthy of being subjected to the critical scrutiny of the halakhic personality. Everything concerns him – from the destiny of man to the eye of a mosquito; the paths of heaven and the paths of Nehardea; from art and music to the knowledge of God; the laws of nature and the laws of history. Concerning all these, the Judaism of halakhot-halikhot possesses its own worldview, its own unique and distinctive perspective.

Scripture says, “Two nations are in your womb,” and our Sages interpreted: “Two proud ones – this one takes pride in his world, and this one takes pride in his kingdom.” Esau looks at the world and sees before him only his kingdom. His entire concern is rule, power, and domination over others. The world has no significance as a world, but only for the sake of kingship. Jacob, by contrast, looks upon the world and sees a world – not a means of increasing his own power and might, but a world in which it is worthwhile to delight for the sake of its Creator, which deserves to be inhabited for the honor of the Master of the world. It is a world in which the Divine Presence that pulses within it is hidden – as the masters of the mystical tradition teach that olam, “world,” derives from he’elem, “concealment” – and gives life to it and everything within it.

Esau’s view of the world is reflexive: he sees in it only what he covets for himself – namely, dominion. Jacob’s gaze is direct and penetrating. He sees worldly reality as it is – the handiwork of the Creator, to whom alone belong the ways of the world. Each possesses his own perspective upon this world. Each looks at it through the lenses best suited to his eyes – whether they are eyes of flesh and blood or eyes of the spirit.

Yet while aggada – the Judaism of the world’s halikhot represented by our patriarch Jacob – confronts Esau’s royal perspective, halakha is restricted. “Since the day the Temple was destroyed, the Holy One, blessed be He, has nothing in His world but the four cubits of halakha.” Consider what this means: the world of the Holy One, blessed be He, enters into the four cubits of halakha. This contraction, brought about by the destruction of the Temple, contracts and is the better for it. For there is no entrance into this world of the Judaism of halikhot except through the Judaism of halakhot. The halakhot are the gateway to the halikhot.

The world of thought and poetry, science and philosophy, appears open to everyone – whoever wishes may come and take. But there is no guarantee that this is the world of the Holy One, blessed be He. In such a world, a person can acquire a thousand pieces of information and know nothing; he can study many branches of wisdom without attaining wisdom, for it is a world of separation. To what may this be compared? To a blind man who feels many branches but does not know that they all unite in a single tree and share one root. He thinks that he is walking in the garden of Israel’s patriarch, but he is only wandering through Esau’s forest.

But if a person’s soul thirsts for the living God; if he passionately desires to examine the foundation of foundations of his own life and of all reality, and to search for the roots after becoming knowledgeable about the leaves and branches; if his soul desires to know the secret of this rich reality, the living spirit of this clamorous, bustling world in all its hues and profusion of colors, the reshimu – the lingering trace – of the Creator within the world, then we say to him: Go to halakha. Through this narrow opening, four cubits wide, you will be able to enter the broad and enchanting world of halikhot. Conversely, one who dwells within halakha but turns his back upon the ways of the world, denies their value, and rejects their importance is like one who decrees that God’s contraction into the four cubits of halakha should be a case of “it contracts and is the worse for it.” He is like someone who has lingered in the vestibule and knows every corner of it but remains entirely unaware that there is a great hall beyond it.

In other words, he acknowledges “the One who spoke,” but not “and the world came into being.”

Far worse is one who acknowledges the world but does not acknowledge the One who spoke and brought the world into being. Ultimately, such a world becomes nothing more than a kingdom – the kingdom of an impoverished king.

Best of all is one who enters the vestibule and sets his face toward the great hall; who sails upon the sea of the Talmud while his desired destination is the continent of the world of halikhot; who unites the four cubits with the entire world and thereby brings redemption to the world. For indeed, “Whoever engages in Torah for its own sake . . . the entire world is worthwhile for his sake.” And indeed, “Whoever studies halakhot every day is assured that he is destined for the World to Come.”

Ultimately, the Torah is the mind of the world. Just as man is a small world, so his mind is Torah in miniature. The Torah may be viewed from the perspective of the structure of man’s physical brain as the mind of the world. The scientists of anatomy and neurology have revealed that the brain consists of two hemispheres, each possessing a different complex of functions. One contains the entire emotional system, the power of imagination, the perception of beauty, and the aesthetic sense. The other contains logic, the modes of thought, and analytical ability.

Woe to the person who lacks half his brain, or in whom one side so greatly overpowers the other that his balance is impaired. Fortunate is the person in whom one complements the other and both work together, so that through them the complete human being is formed, whole in his qualities and abilities.

So it is with the wisdom of Torah: it possesses two planes, halakhot and halikhot. Poetry, soaring imagination, and vision on one side; logic, knowledge, and intellectual ability on the other. Expanding horizons, spiritual expansiveness, and mystical intuition on one side; a narrowing of perspective in order to acquire intellectual depth and cognitive focus on the other. Mastery of both is the path to greatness of mind.

This is the intention of our Sages when they said: “‘The support of bread’ – these are the masters of Talmud; ‘the support of water’ – these are the masters of aggada” (Ḥagigah 14a). Bread is the supreme symbol of logic and effective order – a bounded mass, a particular format, a fixed form, and an efficient and familiar function. Water is fluid, unstable, and impulsive. Water assumes a form and casts off that form. It adapts itself to the walls of every vessel that contains it, beyond every fixed limitation of order, system, and structure.

A person is nourished neither by bread alone nor by water alone. He requires both in order to survive, to escape both hunger and thirst. The same is true of completeness in Torah: the combination of halakhot and halikhot is as essential to the student of Torah as bread and water, or as the two hemispheres of the brain are to every mortal.

My intention, then, is to speak in praise of the world of unity. My purpose is a modest experiment – to reveal, within the four cubits of the study hall, the world of the Holy One, blessed be He, in which our patriarch Jacob took pride; to discover the halikhot within the halakhot; and to touch upon the slightest edge of several subjects that are found in both.

I do not presume to discuss here the general question of the reciprocal relationship between halakha and aggada – especially Kabbala. This is a matter hidden from me, and I have no wish to place my head between the great mountains that have addressed it and concerning which the Sages of the generations have already written and debated. My desire, in the particular subjects discussed in these chapters, is to identify shared patterns of thought; to view aggada through halakha in order to clarify and strengthen its foundations; and to draw upon the world of halikhot in order to elucidate the concepts operative within the world of halakhot. For one who is truly at home within the four cubits of the study hall has the capacity to behold the broad horizons of the entire world and all the worlds, and thereby to affirm the comprehensive harmony of Judaism.

I would, in truth, have been very hesitant to dare to blaze such a new path on my own. But this path has already been paved by great men, pioneers of the spirit and mighty figures of Torah. It is well known that the author of Or Sameaḥ and his townsman, the author of Tzafne'at Pa'neaḥ, repeatedly compared Maimonides’ words in his halakhic works with his thought in the Guide. In doing so, they anticipated the problem and refuted those contemporary secular scholars who claimed that a gulf separates Maimonides the halakhist from Maimonides the philosopher – as though the Mishneh Torah were intended only for the masses, while the Guide of the Perplexed was written solely for the rationalist intellectual elite.

The great halakhic authority Maharsham also at times employed the wisdom of Kabbala in clarifying halakha. See, for example, his responsa, no. 1. Above all stands our master Rabbi Joseph Engel, of blessed memory, who labored and toiled to establish connections between halakha and Kabbala. He left us a remnant of this work in his Otzerot Yosef – Maamar Levana and Maamar David. There he set himself the goal of explaining the kabbalists’ teaching that the sun symbolizes Tiferet, the moon symbolizes Malkhut, and so forth. He adduces proofs from both the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds – not only from aggadic passages, but also from halakha.

For example, in Maamar David 2, p. 66, he establishes that the Sanhedrin represents Malkhut and adds:

"In my halakhic writings, I wrote that the Sanhedrin’s level was the level of the Jewish people as a whole, and that they stood in place of the Jewish people as a whole. I brought many proofs of this from the Talmud. If so, since the Sanhedrin stood in place of the Jewish people as a whole, they were consequently an aspect of the sefirah of Malkhut, just as the Jewish people as a whole are an aspect of this Sefira."

How great is the loss to the Torah world that only this small book remains to us from the treasury of this mighty genius. According to the testimony of his son-in-law, who published the work, in addition to sixty-three works on halakha, another thirty-three works on Kabbala remained in manuscript, in twenty of which he “demonstrates the foundations of Kabbala within the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds.” These manuscripts were apparently lost in the terrible nightmare of the Holocaust. What a pity for those who are lost and cannot be recovered.

They, too, were not actually the first to uncover this reciprocal relationship between halakhot and halikhot. Already in the days of the Geonim and Rishonim this question was raised for discussion. Signs of reservation concerning the matter are already evident in the words of Rav Saadia Gaon and Rav Hai Gaon – see the supplement to Otzar haGeonim, Berakhot, vol. 2, p. 65 – as well as in the words of several Rishonim, including the Rosh in his responsa and the Ran on Nedarim 40b, and also in the words of the Noda biYehudah, Responsa Noda biYehudah, second edition, Yoreh De’ah 161.

In keeping with their reservations, I emphasize here that I have been careful not to confuse the boundaries between halakha and aggada, even where they overlap. I accept as an incontestable premise that no practical halakhic decision may be rendered on the basis of aggada and its derivatives. This is so even though some of the great kabbalistic Sages did rule on the basis of the esoteric Torah – including the author of Sefer haKaneh and Rabbi Meir ibn Gabbai – and it is well known that in three places the Vilna Gaon ruled according to Kabbala against the halakha.

Similarly, the Jerusalem Talmud, at the end of the first chapter of Ḥagigah, states: “One does not issue rulings from the halakhot, the aggadot, or the supplementary traditions, but only from the Talmud.” As for aggada, not only may practical rulings not be derived from it, but the very concept of “ruling” in matters of belief is inapplicable when opinions differ. Not once or twice, but at least three times, Maimonides wrote the same thing in his Commentary on the Mishnah, in a similar formulation with slight changes of wording:

"I have already told you many times that when the Sages disagree concerning a belief that does not culminate in any practical action, one does not say that the halakha follows a particular authority, because it is a matter that returns to the Holy One, blessed be He." See Sota, chapter 3; Sanhedrin, chapter 11; and Shevuot, chapter 1.

Other Rishonim, however, praise and affirm that where aggada does not contradict the Talmud, one may indeed learn from it and rely upon it. See Tosafot, Berakhot 48a, s.v. veleit hilkheta; Sefer heYashar of Rabbenu Tam, no. 619; Responsa Ḥok Yaakov, vol. 2, no. 178; and many others.

We have learned the same from the great later authorities. Both Rabbi Ḥayyim of Volozhin and Rabbi Shneur Zalman, author of the Tanya, determined that hidden mysteries are concealed within halakha. See my Torah Lishmah, chapter 3, p. 89, n. 65.

I likewise found it written by one of the Sages of our generation, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Bloch, of blessed memory:

"The difference between halakha and aggada lies only in their modes of study and methods of interpretation. In their content and form, however, they constitute one complete Torah. It is impossible to attain complete understanding of either without achieving mastery of the other."

See his essay “Halakha and Aggada.” See also similar statements in Shi’urei Daat by Rabbi Joseph Judah Leib Bloch, in the essays “Let the Mixture Not Be Lacking” and “The Soul of the Torah.”

More than once I heard lectures from my master and teacher, may he live, in which halakha and aggada were woven together with the skill of a master craftsman – aggada in the sense of Kabbala, philosophical thought, or the “words of the living God” of Hasidism, especially in its Ḥabad formulation. A person is obligated to speak in the language of his teacher. I relied upon these great men when I undertook to combine halakhot and halikhot without impairing the integrity or diminishing the stature of either. On the contrary, my entire purpose is to point toward a greater, broader, and more majestic completeness of Torah, when the two texts come together as one.

*

I had two great teachers in the study of Torah. These two great luminaries were my master and grandfather, Rabbi Joshua Baumol, of blessed memory, author of Responsa Emek Halakha, volumes 1 and 2, and – may he be distinguished for a long and good life – my master and teacher Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, the glory and genius of our generation, may he merit a complete recovery.

I studied with my grandfather from the time I became conscious of myself – in addition to the classes I attended at Mesivta Torah Vodaath in Brooklyn – until he departed this life on the fourth of Elul 5708. In him I saw a living example of toil in Torah and of perseverance, even under conditions of physical illness and heartache during the years of nightmare and inferno, when he learned of the loss of most of his family in the Holocaust that burned and consumed the house of Israel upon the accursed continent of Europe.

His quiet and perceptive countenance – his smiling face, the thread of grace drawn across his lips, his willingness to explain again and again something in Rashi or Tosafot that was difficult for me but clear to him as the sun, without sparing the loss of his time, and the open love he gave me as a boundless, unearned gift – this noble image of the Galician rabbi and halakhic decisor who educated his eldest grandson, born in America, without the latter ever sensing any generational divide, continues to shine its radiant face upon me even today, forty years after his passing.

I learned much from my grandfather, of blessed memory. To this day, I am distressed to the point of dejection that I did not manage to learn from him everything he was prepared to teach – an instance of “more than the calf wishes to suckle, the cow wishes to nurse.” Above all, I learned the critical faculty in Torah study and the drive to search for the roots of things.

I remember when I was a child of about ten. We were studying Tosafot in Pesaḥim, where Tosafot cited Rashi’s words from another tractate in order to challenge him. I read the words of “the Kuntres” and moved on to the objection. My grandfather stopped me.

“Do you understand what Rashi is saying?”

“Yes, Grandpa.”

“Does Rashi really say that?”

I looked at him in astonishment. “Certainly. Do Tosafot not quote him that way?”

“My son,” he answered, “do not be lazy. Trouble yourself, go to the bookcase, remove the tractate in which this Rashi appears, and check for yourself whether Tosafot were indeed accurate in quoting Rashi.

“Know, my son, that faith and trust are foundations of religion, without which we cannot move. That is the absolute truth in matters of faith and belief. But when you enter the inner sanctum of Torah study, you may not place your trust in trust. When you study, you must be skeptical and suspicious. When the Talmud quotes a baraita from another source – check the work of the Talmud’s editor. When Tosafot quote Rashi, when the Rosh quotes Maimonides, or when I quote the Noda Bi-Yehudah in my book – rely neither upon them nor upon me. Search out the source yourself. Sift every proposition or innovation through sieve after sieve. Ask, suspect, examine, and criticize. Only then is there some chance that perhaps one day you will attain true learning . . .”

About a year before my grandfather’s passing, and about two years after I transferred to Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, I was admitted to the class of my master, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. My grandfather was very pleased and derived much satisfaction from this. Although he was considerably older than the Rav, he honored and revered him as the genius of the generation.

I spent two years with “the Rav,” as his students called him. After a break of several more years, during which I studied Ḥullin and Yoreh De’ah, I studied with him again. From then on, I regarded him as my primary teacher, although I do not presume to boast, God forbid, that he regarded me as a primary student.

The Rav opened before me broad horizons of which I had never dreamed. I saw before me a genius in Torah from whom no secret was hidden – neither in Torah nor in philosophy, neither in science nor in literature, neither in the discussions of Abbaye and Rava nor in the workings of the world. He mastered all of them and moved within them as one moving through his own domain. Torah and wisdom were bound together within him.

In Torah, he revealed to me the world of Lithuanian Brisk in its original form. His analytical ability in every topic he approached; his pursuit of halakhic truth on every page and every folio; his creative power in every passage of Maimonides he raised; the great teacher’s sensitivity to every word and every nuance – all these seemed to me a wonder from on high.

His classes were renowned throughout the Torah world for glory and praise. His great strength did not lie in the systematic arrangement of all the data and sources. On the contrary, instead of setting before us a prepared table of every position and argument – a ready-made menu – he taught us how every dish is cooked and how the feast of the mind is prepared from the beginning. He penetrated deeply into the foundations of the matter until, in the end, the light of Torah shone upon us in all its splendor.

Unlike his public lectures on the anniversary of the death of his father, the great Rabbi Moses Soloveitchik, of blessed memory – lectures ordered to perfection, in which he demonstrated his powers of intellectual and rhetorical architecture – his Talmud classes for his students were an act of creation from nothing. First there was chaos and void; only from within that chaos and void did enduring creations emerge.

In the room in which he delivered his classes, I saw neither a quiet nor a tranquil man – neither peace nor serenity, neither harmony nor even the fatherly smile of the rebbe. There I witnessed abstract creativity in all its wondrous power and terrifying might – grinding mountains against mountains and producing pure flour; leaping upward and springing downward; a dynamism beyond compare. It was as though all the tension of Creation were revealed before us on the intellectual plane through the creative power of Torah study, merging with the drama of the revelation of the Divine Presence at Sinai amid thunder and lightning.

We emerged weary and exhausted from these classes twice each week, yet our spirits still wandered in the heavens, and wheels within wheels continued to move and revolve within the intellectual Work of the Chariot that the Rav had not merely disclosed to us. It was as though, against our will, he had drawn us into the work of creation together with him. He did not want students who merely listened. He wanted partners in Torah who would learn his method by participating with him.

Of all the Rav’s qualities – his wondrous profundity in Torah, his openness to every branch of worldly wisdom, his intellectual integrity, his pursuit of truth, and so forth – the quality that made the deepest impression upon me during the years in which I served him was intellectual independence in Torah.

The Rav is the spiritual heir of the founder of the dynasty, the great Rabbi Ḥayyim of Volozhin, the foremost disciple of the Vilna Gaon. From them he learned, and taught, this distinctive quality, which is the guarantee of striving toward the truth of Torah.

The Vilna Gaon’s courage, zeal for truth, and intellectual integrity became renowned and entered into legend. Rabbi Ḥayyim cites the Gaon as teaching that, in determining a halakhic ruling, one may show deference to no one – even one who is greater than oneself. See Responsa Ḥut heMeshullash, no. 9. Rabbi Ḥayyim conducted himself in this manner throughout his life.

He offered praise and thanksgiving to God, “the Wise One who knows all secrets,” because “the opinions of human beings are not identical to one another. Both these and those are the words of the living God, provided that our hearts are directed toward deriving the law according to the truth of Torah. May He, blessed be He, for the sake of His seal, which is truth, open our eyes to discover a true path in Torah, of which it is written, ‘truth’” – ibid., no. 8.

When a student maintains his position out of a pursuit of truth, he is engaged in an obligatory war, and we are commanded “to show deference to no person, but only to love the truth” – Ru'aḥ Ḥayyim on Avot 1:4. The force of this independence applies even against one’s own teacher. Thus said Rabbi Ḥayyim:

"A student is forbidden to accept his teacher’s words when he has objections to them. At times the truth is with the student, just as a small piece of wood can ignite a large one. This is the meaning of 'Let your house be a meeting place for the Sages, and wrestle' – from the expression 'a man wrestled with him.' It refers to the wrestling of war, for it is an obligatory war. So too with respect to our teachers who are in the land . . . we have been given permission to wrestle and battle with their words and to resolve our objections to them. We must show deference to no person, but only love the truth."

At the same time, this struggle must be conducted with seriousness and humility, and the student must consider himself like dust beneath their feet – “wrestle in the dust of their feet.”

This is the tradition that our great master, the Rav, received and transmitted to us, his students, as something self-evident.

The following incident occurred. I was young when the Rav delivered classes on the third chapter of Mo’ed Katan, Elu Megalleḥin. Over the course of three classes, he wrestled with a single Tosafot until he developed a consistent and plausible approach that satisfied him.

At the beginning of the next class, he opened the Talmud, raised his eyes toward me, and asked, “What is the explanation of Tosafot?”

Naturally, I repeated his answer almost word for word.

To my great surprise, he became angry with me, rebuked me publicly, and said:

"I already know that explanation. That is what I said yesterday. I do not want you to tell me what I say. I want to know what you say. If you wish to remain in this class, you must think for yourself and not merely repeat what you have heard from others – even from me – until you have examined the matter very, very carefully."

And another instructive incident: At the beginning of my years in the rabbinate, I presented him with a very serious question affecting thousands of Jews and asked him to offer his opinion and instruct me concerning the halakhic ruling.

He answered candidly: "I am not expert in this subject. I have never specialized in this area of halakha. But I see that you possess knowledge of the matter. If you feel confident in one direction or the other, rule according to your own judgment without fear."

I did so, together with several other rabbis. A few years later, the Rav was asked the same question. By then he had examined the subject with the full force of his wisdom and ruled in the opposite direction from me.

I was embarrassed. But the Rav encouraged me to maintain my position in my community for as long as I believed with complete conviction that the ruling I had issued was correct. He did not judge me as one who issued a halakhic ruling in the presence of his teacher. He did not demand that I submit to his opinion or honor. He did not rely upon his own “Torah authority.” He did not impose his authority upon me. Rather, like his great grandfather, he demanded that I not accept my teacher’s words when I had objections to them, for sometimes the truth is with the student.

The hand of forgetfulness is extended over everything the student learns from his teacher. Such is the nature and frailty of memory. If a person does not review his studies day and night, those studies take their revenge upon him. He forgets the novel insights and sayings, the arguments and flashes of insight.

The years pass, and time does its work. It impoverishes the student and empties his bucket of the Torah he drew from his teacher. But there is one thing that forgetfulness has no power to steal from him – the teacher himself, his character and the qualities of his soul. What the teacher said can be forgotten; what the teacher was is engraved upon the tablet of memory and will never be erased. The teacher’s spiritual personality and intellectual image – that is his eternal Torah.

These two teachers, each in his own style and form, engraved upon the tablet of my heart the same common line, the same intellectual image, the same Torah personality – one whose purpose is the pursuit of the truth of Torah through independence and critical judgment.

Fortunate is one who merited to serve them, although the burden borne by the student of such spiritual giants can at times be almost too great to bear.

This, then, is my justification for having dared to commit to writing and publish some of my Torah insights and several responsa that I have proposed. Most of the chapters in this book were conceived in lectures that I delivered from the lectern of the study hall of our sacred institution, Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary. These were presented annually in honor of the anniversary of the death of the Rabbi of Kovno, of blessed memory, whose name our institution proudly bears, and in blessed memory of my master, the great Rabbi Samuel Belkin, of blessed memory.

They were born as articles published in various Torah periodicals, including Hapardes, Hadarom, Beit Yitzḥak, and Beit Yosef Sha'ul, as well as other such periodicals and various books.

If a reader finds an error in this book, the responsibility is entirely mine, and “my error shall lodge with me.” I ask the student of this book to attribute such errors not only to my own limited worth and to my failure to serve my teachers adequately, but also to the many distractions and the heavy burden placed upon me in administering this magnificent and many-branched institution – a responsibility that binds me day and night and consumes my time.

If, however, the reader finds not an error in plain meaning or understanding but disagrees with my interpretation of the halakha or my approach, he has every right to do so. On the contrary, this is the way of Torah, and I am grateful to him – provided that he does not demand that I submit solely to the words of others. For I have planted my supports upon these two great figures – my grandfather, of blessed memory, and the Rav, may he live – who educated me and nurtured me in this way from my youth.

*

I am obligated to thank four as I bring this book to the press, and may they all be blessed.

Honor is due to my master and uncle, Rabbi Joseph Mordecai Baumol, may he live, to whom for most of my life I have been a student-colleague. He served as my helper and support during the quarter-century in which I served as rabbi of several important American communities and afterward during my tenure at Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary. He was both an encourager and critic in Torah study and in public leadership alike.

Deep and precious affection is due to my beloved son-in-law, as dear to me as my own son, Rabbi Moshe Ben-Zion Dratch, may he live. Since he married my younger daughter, as dear to me as my own soul, Sarah Rebecca, may she live, we have studied Torah together as a ḥavruta. He travels from a great distance – sometimes three hours or more – each week. Thanks to this Torah study together, I merited to develop several of the insights presented here.

Many thanks are due to my distinguished friend, a man of many accomplishments and vice-chairman of the Board of Trustees of Yeshiva University, Mr. Gershon Isaac Merkin, and to his honored wife, may she live. They hosted me in their magnificent apartment in the holy city of Jerusalem and enabled me, over the course of two months, to complete this work in serenity and with an expansive mind. May their strength be blessed, and may they merit physical health and abundant light.

Last but not least, I express my gratitude to my distinguished friend Dr. Yitzchak Raphael, head of Mossad Harav Kook, and to his faithful assistant, the esteemed Rabbi Moshe Katzenellenbogen. It is through their efforts that this book is being published.

My heart goes out to our sacred institution, RIETS – to all its teachers and students, officers and trustees, supporters and friends. The six years I spent there as a student were among the best years of my life. I taught there for nearly eighteen years, until the responsibility of standing at its head and administering its affairs was placed upon me twelve years ago.

If only I may someday merit to repay my moral and spiritual debt to this institution, which shaped my personality and enabled me to savor both Torah and science.

May it be God’s will that, in the merit of these words of Torah, He send a complete recovery to my dear mother, Pearl, may she live, and grant my father and teacher, Mr. Meir Samuel, many years of life with renewed strength. May my beloved wife Mindel and I merit to derive abundant satisfaction from our sons and daughters and their spouses, and from our grandsons and granddaughters. May they all live to 120 and raise an upright generation of students and supporters of Torah who will be a source of blessing and glory to the entire house of Israel.

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It is related that Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Chajes once presented Rabbi Moses Sofer, author of the Ḥatam Sofer, with his book Torat haNeviim. In its introduction, he expressed his fear that fault-finders would attack him harshly, claiming that his words contained nothing new.

The Ḥatam Sofer encouraged him to disregard them and publish the book, since his intention was to magnify Torah and render it glorious. He drew support from the Talmud in Beitza 38, which relates that before Rabbi Abba ascended to the Land of Israel, he prayed: “May it be God’s will that I say something acceptable to the Sages of the Land of Israel.” Yet when he met them in the study hall, they mocked him.

The Ḥatam Sofer compared this account of Rabbi Abba with the prayer of Rabbi Neḥunya ben haKana in Berakhot 28. He too prayed: “May it be Your will that I not stumble in a matter of halakha and that my colleagues rejoice in me.” Yet we do not find that his colleagues insulted him.

The Ḥatam Sofer asked: Why did Rabbi Abba fail, while Rabbi Neḥunya ben haKana’s prayer was accepted and he succeeded?

He answered that Rabbi Abba sought the agreement of his listeners and wished to find favor in their eyes. Rabbi Neḥunya ben haKana, by contrast, did indeed pray that his colleagues should rejoice in him, but that was secondary. His primary concern was that he not stumble in a matter of halakha and that he arrive at the truth of Torah.

When these words emerged from the mouth of the Ḥatam Sofer, teaching that inner integrity is superior to finding favor in the eyes of others, Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Chajes was reassured.

This is my prayer as I present my book, Halakhot and Halikhot, to the community of Torah students:

May my colleagues rejoice in me, and may my teachers not be ashamed of me. Greater still, however, is my sincere prayer that I not stumble in a matter of halakha, that my intellectual integrity not be impaired, and that I direct myself toward the truth of Torah. Amen, may it be His will.

I pronounce the blessing upon the completion of this work on the fourth of Elul 5748 – the fortieth anniversary of the passing of my master and grandfather, Rabbi Joshua Baumol, may his soul rest in peace.

Nachum son of Meir Samuel Lamm

Sackett Lake, New York

4 Elul 5748