May 31, 2020

The International Rabbinic Fellowship deeply mourns the passing of Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm, zt"l Chancellor and former President and Rosh Ha-Yeshiva of Yeshiva University.

R. Lamm was one of the leading thinkers of our generation and a communal leader whose impact was enormous both in his home community of Modern Orthodoxy and the rest of the Jewish world. Many of our members were students of R. Lamm and had personal connections with him over the many decades of his public service. R. Lamm was a man of great breadth, depth and eloquence who blended together the rigor of classical Talmud Torah, and the passion and deep spirituality of his Hasidic roots. He coupled all this with a vigorous commitment to integrating Judaic knowledge with the best of general wisdom, advocating for a robust and convincing vision of Torah-U-Mada. 

R. Lamm was a master orator, darshan, communal rabbi and Jewish philosopher who had a broad and compassionate vision of halakha and its relationship to the world. He engaged with the entire Jewish world and tried to find ways to break down barriers between groups of people, within the Jewish community and beyond. R. Lamm was the founding editor of Tradition and authored dozens of works and hundreds of essays during his distinguished career. Many of his written works are masterpieces that have become classics of Jewish learning and thought. 

May his family be comforted by the Almighty among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem. Yehi Zichro Barukh.