Liturgy

Jonathan Muskat responds to Jonathan Sarna regarding a proposed change in the text of the Orthodox Jewish prayer for the government.

Many synagogue goers found the abbreviated High Holiday services we recently concluded quite appealing. Need we eventually go back to the way it was before coronavirus? Not really, argues Moshe Kurtz, surveying the substantial halakhic support for shortening the services every year.

Yaakov Jaffe argues that kids would be better served by coming to shul for the beginning of the Shabbat davening rather than the end.

Yosef Lindell argues that the Haggadah focuses on the story of the Exodus rather than on the laws of the paschal sacrifice as a way of looking forward towards the future redemption.

Yosef Lindell examines why Shomron Kol Titein is a fitting conclusion to the daytime kinnot on Tisha Be-Av.

In this timely article, Wendy Zierler examines how Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai's "Beterem" can provide readers with the inspiration they need leading up to the Days of Awe

Today, we share letters to the editor by Ephraim Chamiel, Steven Gotlib, and Moshe Kurtz.

In advance of Tisha Be-Av, Tzvi Novick annotates and interprets the kinnah of a’adeh ad hug shamayim by the master poet R. Eleazar ha-Kalir, unlocking its complex acrostic to determine who its speaker is meant to be.

Have you seen the latest teen magazine for religious Zionist women? Yoel Finkelman has, and he has some thoughts.

Moshe Kurtz explores several halakhic questions concerning the recitation of kaddish for the deceased, all of which point to a larger discussion about how one can confer merit on someone else.