Shalom Carmy’s Milestone
R. Shalom Carmy
With the conclusion of this academic semester Rabbi Shalom Carmy, esteemed editor emeritus of TRADITION, reaches the milestone of 50 years of teaching at Yeshiva University. To mark the occasion we are re-posting this link to Divrei Shalom: Collected Editor’s Notes, edited by Avraham Wein with an introduction by Yitzchak Blau, which was published in 2019 as he stepped down from editor’s position at our journal. We are pleased to make that entire volume available as a free e-book here.
R. Shalom Carmy has been one of the most articulate and insightful voices in our community for decades and these relatively brief essays (initially appearing as his editor’s columns in Tradition between 2005-2019) provide an accessible window into the thought of a profound thinker. Idiosyncratic as always, R. Carmy cannot be neatly pigeon-holed into an ideological box; the reader often does not anticipate which direction he is heading. He utilizes a remarkable range of sources encompassing traditional rabbinic luminaries, the great figures of Western culture, and even Kojak’s debate with Freud about Oedipus (47:3). These essays show his curious mind and considerable intellect applied to a broad range of topics. The collection incorporates several moving eulogies and character portraits of figures such as R. Lichtenstein (48:2-3), R. Ovadia Yosef (46:4), Menachem Begin (46:1), and the author’s mother (41:1). Recurring themes include religious responses to suffering (39:2, 40:4, 43:3, 45:3), the importance of the individual (39:4, 45:1, 49:1), cultivation of religious inwardness (44:3, 46:2), and different aspects of the endeavor of Talmud Torah (41:4, 43:1, 47:3). Other significant columns address the value of following sports and the potential effect of educators making cynical comments about being a sports fan (42:2), the rewards of a career in education (42:1), an analysis of rabbis speaking about political matters (47:1), and the value of the constructive endeavor even if one is only rebuilding what was torn down (39:3).
Access all of R. Carmy’s individual contributions to TRADITION in our archives.