The question of whether rabbis should speak out on controversial national issues beyond the daled amot (four cubits) of our Jewish community is one that is being discussed and debated more and more frequently in many forums, including in this paper. Indeed, I have written about, and taken a strong stand on, this issue a number of times in this paper, most recently in “Still Disappointed by my Community.” And just two weeks ago, another opinion writer took a position very different from mine in “Rabbis need to cool it with ICE.”

As Kohelet taught millennia ago, ve-ein kol chadash tachat ha-shamesh – there is nothing new beneath the sun. (Eccl. 1:9) How true! At the Jewish Center 58 years ago, on Shabbat Parshat Vayakhel-Parah, March 23, 1968, Rabbi Norman Lamm preached on this very topic as it related to the Vietnam war. Excerpts from his sermon, “Vietnam and the Jewish Conscience,” with its carefully chosen, deeply thoughtful, and as always eloquent words on this complex and critically vital issue, are set forth below. The sermon is, I assure you, a most worthwhile read no matter where you come out on this question.

(I thank the Lamm Legacy and its director, my friend Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Sinensky, for preserving and disseminating R. Lamm’s timely and timeless teachings and values, including providing easy access to his sermons.)

Before I turn this column over to R. Lamm, however, I must make one thing very clear. In presenting his 1968 thoughts vis-à-vis the Vietnam war, I am not implying that R. Lamm would take the same position in 2026 vis-à-vis, for example, American immigration enforcement. With........

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