Commentary

Steven Gotlib reviews Sam Leben’s book A Guide for the Jewish Undecided: A Philosopher Makes the Case for Orthodox Judaism.

The new book Reclaiming Dignity is taking the Anglo Jewish world by storm. Why? Emmanuel Bloch, who wrote his dissertation on the subject of tzeniut, argues that the work capitalizes on and extends a new, revolutionary halakhic and conceptual framework for tzeniut that has emerged only in recent years - one that offers a lens to the “soul of contemporary Jewish Orthodoxy.”

Avi Garson traces the rise and fall of the classical Sephardic tradition and calls for a renewed return to its fundamental principles.

Steven Gotlib reviews Eugene Korn’s To Be a Holy People: Jewish Tradition and Ethical Values, a book which asks hard questions about whether Halakhah can integrate with the demands of contemporary ethics.

At what point in Jewish thought does artificial intelligence go too far? In this short story, Olga Lempert writes about a world where humanity itself might be replaced by the machines they create

What do the wisdom of traditional Jewish texts and the recent findings of modern psychology have in common? Marc Eichenbaum finds commonalities in both to promote a character-driven approach to Jewish education.

Who was Monsieur Shoshani, the mysterious and brilliant teacher of some of the greatest 20th century Jewish thinkers? A new look into recently published notebooks of this important figure may help solve the puzzle. David Lang, Yoel Finkelman, and Admiel Kosman offer a commentary and analysis of one such enigmatic passage.

How successful is the new book, Reclaiming Dignity: A Guide to Tzniut for Men and Women, at setting forth a new Torah-based vision for modesty? Laurie Novick offers a careful review, carefully considering both the personal essays and halakhic/hashkafic analyses set forward in this important work.

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.

Yaakov Taubes explores the background to Maimonides’s explanation for how the Mishnah is ordered.