Bidspirit auction | HAGER, LEVI YITZCHAK. (Of Vizhnitz).

HAGER, LEVI YITZCHAK. (Of Vizhnitz). Autograph Letter Signed written in Hebrew to Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm. Three pages. n.p, Friday of Parshath Eikev, 2006. A friendly letter laden with Torah content concerning the writings and person of Rabbi Yehoshua Baumol, Rabbi Lamm’s grandfather, who had been the rosh yeshiva of the Vizhnitz yeshiva in Europe before emigrating to the United States. The letter displays how Torah can serve as a bridge between different Orthodox communities. Rabbi Levi Yitchak Hager is the son of the Rabbi Dovid Hager, the present Vizhnitzer Rebbe who heads the Imrei Chaim community in London. Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm (1927-2020) exerted a great influence on the theology and identity of Modern Orthodoxy, which he liked to term ‘Centrist Orthodoxy, ’ through his decades-spanning rabbinic career. Chancellor of Yeshiva University, Lamm was a founder and the first editor of the important journal Tradition and author of Torah Umadda, which formulated and defended the religious concepts underpinning Yeshiva University. He was an expert in disparate fields of Jewish thought, including both Hasidism, as well as the writings of Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin, the forbearer of the traditional Lithuanian yeshiva system, of which Yeshiva University’s Rabbi Isaac Elchanan’s Theological Seminary is spiritually descended.