YU Announces Launch of Rabbi Norman Lamm Digital Archive
Yeshiva University announced the launch of Lamm Legacy: The Rabbi Norman Lamm Digital Archive on Sept. 16, a new digital platform that consolidates the collected works of the university’s longtime president and rosh yeshiva.
The archive expands upon the earlier Rabbi Norman Lamm Sermon Archive, integrating thousands of additional materials, including correspondence, speeches, essays, books, and even poetry. According to the university’s announcement, sent via email to the entire student body, the collection aims to “illuminate Rabbi Dr. Lamm’s intellect, vision, and the bold, principled model of Jewish leadership he embodied.”
Rabbi Lamm was the president of YU from 1976 to 2003 and also served as rosh yeshiva. He received semikha [rabbinical ordination] from RIETS (‘51) and a PhD from Revel (‘66) in Jewish philosophy. In addition to teaching Jewish philosophy at Yeshiva College, he founded Tradition, the journal of the Rabbinical Council of America, and was the rabbi of Congregation Kodimoh in Springfield, Mass., before serving as the rabbi of The Jewish Center in New York City from 1958 to 1976.
The new project, directed by Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Sinensky who also recently edited a volume of Rabbi Lamm’s Talmudic essays, brings together over 5,000 digitized items within a searchable database, alongside tens of thousands of previously unseen documents from Rabbi Lamm’s personal archive.
“The Lamm Legacy is an organization dedicated to preserving and sharing Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm’s teachings and values,” Rabbi Sinensky told The Commentator. “At the heart of the project is the Lamm Library, a digital archive of more than 5,000 items — sermons, letters, lectures, and books — all in one searchable platform at lammlegacy.org. Much of the additional material comes from Rabbi Lamm’s personal archive of over 200,000 pieces of paper, most never before public.”
“The goal is for students, scholars, and the wider community to encounter Rabbi Lamm’s model of principled, intellectually rigorous Modern Orthodoxy,” Rabbi Sinensky said. He added that the project is “especially important for YU students,” encouraging them to explore the archive to “get to know the intellectual and spiritual foundations of your school.”
“As someone who grew up hearing the legends of Rabbi Lamm, I am so excited to now have access to this library, where I can feel like I am learning from him first hand,” Eli Novick (YC ‘26) told The Commentator. “He made such a tremendous impact in YU specifically and the broader Jewish world more generally, and it is so special that he gets to continue that impact on us after his passing.”
Photo Caption: Rabbi Norman Lamm
Photo Credit: Folksonomy / Wikimedia Commons
