What role should young children play in the post-COVID synagogue?
Yaakov Jaffe argues that kids would be better served by coming to shul for the beginning of the Shabbat davening rather than the end.
Should the Davening of the Tenth of Tevet Take Sides in a Talmudic Debate?
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.
Streamlining Services: What Can we Learn from High Holidays 5781?
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.
Aleinu and Genesis: Against the Twin Idolatries of Universalism & Ethnonationalism
Does the Torah support a universalist or ethnonationalist political orientation? In this timely essay, Ezra Zuckerman Sivan explores the meaning behind key stories in Genesis through the framework of the Aleinu prayer.
Human Words: Rav Elhanan Nir’s “Intentions for Rosh Hashanah”
Levi Morrow provides an all-new translation of Rav Elhanan Nir’s “Kavvanot for Rosh Hashanah,” and analyzes how these theological poems speak about our relationship with God and prayer on Rosh Hashanah.
Ve-Atah Banim Shiru La-Melekh – People Over Angels on Shavuot
What can a medieval piyut (and famous modern chassidic tune) teach us about people's superiority over angels? Yitzchak Szyf explores how our Shavuot liturgy proclaims man's partnership with God in Torah.
When Synagogues Reopen, May the Congregation Permit a Bar Mitzvah Boy to Make Up...
When Synagogues Reopen, May the Congregation Permit a Bar Mitzvah Boy to Make Up His Torah Reading? Moshe Kurtz weighs in.
Climate Change and Prayers for Rain and Dew
By examining the prayers for rain and dew through the lens of meteorology and Rabbi Soloveitchik’s Lonely Man of Faith, Chaim Trachtman presents a unique religious model for thinking about climate change.
Cantillation: Some Observations – Part 2
In Part II of his series on trop, William Gewirtz explains the principle of recursion and how it helps us interpret texts.
A Journey to the Land of Prayer
An exclusive look into Rav Dov Singer's new English work on prayer, Prepare My Prayer.