Festivals of Faith: Reflections on the Jewish Holidays

Norman Lamm
Edited by David Shatz, OU Press, $45

This is an edited collection of sermons delivered over a 50-year period by Rabbi Norman Lamm, Chancellor of Yeshiva University and a well-known voice of modern Orthodoxy. It consists of some 55 essays on the festival cycle from Rosh Hashanah to Tishah b'Av, as well as a number of thoughtful pieces on Yom Ha'atzmaut.

They reflect Rabbi Lamm's eloquence and erudition, blending a huge array of Torah sources with contemporary cultural and political references. While in some cases quite chatty, they are also highly-structured homiletical masterpieces, packed with pithy and challenging observations.

I was struck by his ability to extract powerful lessons from phenomena that are often overlooked. His piece on the prohibition of wearing leather shoes on Yom Kippur illustrates this: he attributes it to the affirmation of all life on the holiest of days and the realisation that "we must not trample the sensitivities of others underfoot".