Commentary

Roy Pinchot responds to Zach Truboff's article decrying the ethical and spiritual costs of the war.

Steven Gotlib review's Elliot Cosgrove's "For Such a Time as This: On Being Jewish Today," which urges unity among American Jewry.

As the war in Israel approaches its third year, Zach Truboff calls upon Israeli society and its friends abroad to confront the spiritual and moral cost of the violence.

Shimi Kaufman explores the nature of the obligation to learn and to teach Torah.

The death of Nadav and Avihu is difficult to explain, perhaps even impossible to approach through the medium of language. In a composition crossing the boundaries of original drashah, Breslov thought, poetry, visual art, and historical fiction, Akiva Weisinger renders the tragedy of Nadav and Avihu as a reflection of the Vacated Space beyond human language.

The masters of hasidut and psychoanalysis both arrived at a counterintuitive understanding of human nature, according to which narcissism is a reflection of self-hate rather than self-love. Admiel Kosman traces this idea as it appears in the works of Erich Fromm, the Rebbe of Warka, and Martin Buber, focusing on the commandment to love one's neighbor as a behaviorist correction.

Rabba Wendy Amsellem reviews Gila Fine's new book, "The Madwoman in the Rabbi's Attic."

Aton Holzer reflects on Jerusalem and Zionism.

The Yemenite Children Affair is among the most persistent myths in Israeli society. Ben Rothke reviews a recent book examining the evidence, or lack thereof, for the affair, as well as what its persistence means for community relations in contemporary Israel.

Drawing upon the teachings of the Piaseczner Rebbe, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, and others, Yiscah Smith proposes a model for reimagining contemporary Jewish leadership on both the communal and personal levels.