Commentary

There’s a miniature kaf at the beginning of the parashah. As Gabriel Slamovits explains, what the diminished letter says about how Abraham mourned for Sarah fits well with a prominent teaching of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, zt”l.

In his review of Michael Hattin’s commentaries on the books of Joshua and Judges, Francis Nataf explores how greater collaboration between creative Tanakh teachers could help reduce the number of overly speculative readings.

Wendy Amsellem While I greatly enjoyed reading Chaim Saiman’s thoughtful essay, “The Market for Gedolim: A Tale of Supply and Demand,” nothing about it made...

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.

Alan Jotkowitz disagrees with Sharon Galper Grossman’s and Shamai Grossman’s halakhic argument that wealthy nations should provide booster shots to their own populations before contributing doses to poorer countries.

Elinatan Kupferberg argues that the boundaries between Torah and Madda have blurred and evolved throughout Jewish intellectual history. This erudite analysis upends our assumptions about Torah u-Madda and breathtakingly reimagines its past, present, and future.

Chaim Saiman on halakhic change and the observance of Tisha Be-Av.

Martin Lockshin reviews the Jewish Publication Society’s latest Bible translation, the JPS Tanakh: Gender-Sensitive Edition.

Fix the Israeli Rabbinate, says Elli Fischer, but first identify the problem.

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