Rabbi Lamm and the Spirit of the Rabbinate

In this episode of the TRADITION Podcast we talk with two contributors to our recent “Rabbi Norman Lamm Memorial Volume” about R. Lamm’s vision for the American rabbinate. R. Lamm served as a prominent pulpit rabbi for over a quarter-century, first in Springfield, MA, and then at Manhattan’s Jewish Center. As Rosh Ha-Yeshiva of Yeshiva University’s Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, he presided over the training of multiple generations of young rabbis who went out to have a profound impact in synagogues, schools, and organizational life. Our editor, R. Jeffrey Saks, spoke with R. Menachem Penner and R. Benjamin Samuels about their essays in the memorial volume, which explored R. Lamm’s energetic rabbinic leadership and his message and challenge to his rabbinic colleagues and students.

Rabbi Menachem Penner is the Max and Marion Grill Dean of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary.
Rabbi Benjamin J. Samuels, Ph.D., has been rabbi of Congregation Shaarei Tefillah in Newton, MA, since 1995 and teaches widely in the Greater Boston Jewish community.

Watch a video recording of the conversation: https://youtu.be/2J3Znev0qCc
Order your copy of the “Rabbi Norman Lamm Memorial Volume”: https://rabbis.org/product/tradition-norman-lamm-memorial-volume

Sound clips in this episode from Rabbi Lamm’s Centennial Chag HaSemichah address, “There is a Prophet in Israel” (April 6, 1986), courtesy of the Lamm Heritage Archives: www.yu.edu/about/lamm-heritage