Liturgy

Noam Stadlan offers a heartfelt reinterpretation of Tzidkatkha Tzedek.

With the High Holidays approaching, a time iconic for its songful liturgy, Moshe Kurtz scrutinizes the practice of cantors repeating words during davening.

Historian Jonathan Sarna places a recent decision by an Orthodox synagogue to modify the "prayer for the government" into sharp historical focus.

Eliav Grossman contextualizes the femininity emerging from some of Proverbs' best known passages

Zev Eleff on a perennially interesting portion of the liturgy.

Several reasons are given in our tradition about the reason for the fast on the Tenth of Tevet. The liturgy for the day takes a stand on what the true reasons are, but Yaakov Jaffe questions whether this stand is the right one.

How should we understand Yatziv Pitgam, the enigmatic poem recited in the Haftarah for the second day of Shavuot? Tzvi Novick’s close reading reveals it to be a paean to the Torah and those who study it.

Yitzhak Szyf explores the piyyut of Shnei Zeitim, a once well-known addition to the Shabbat Hanukkah services that subtly critiques the Hasmoneans for usurping the kingship while serving as priests.

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.

Who is the Woman of Valor, really? She's a woman engaged in a relationship of mutuality, argues Malka Simkovich, and someone who has her own voice and deserves to be heard.