Torah Personalities

The novelty of Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein's teachings on women's Talmud study... explained, by Shlomo Zuckier!

The exhaustive Talmud commentary of Provencal scholar Menachem ben Shlomo Ha-Meiri was largely disregarded by Jewish scholars for centuries. Its revived popularity in the twentieth century presents a puzzle, then, for which multiple explanations have been offered. Michael Broyde considers the approaches advanced by his teacher Dr. Haym Soloveitchik and by others, before proposing his own explanation, focusing on Meiri's unique level of access to and use of Yerushalmi texts.

Zvi Romm, a Rav on the Lower East Side for the last eighteen years, shares insights into the unexpected and remarkably democratic personality of the Rosh Yeshiva.

Elana Stein Hain Editor’s Note: We are running a number of pieces for the sheloshim of Professor David Weiss Halivni z"l. For Elli Fischer’s introduction...

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.

Steven Gotlib reviews the magnum opus of legendary Jewish thinker Yitz Greenberg, considering ways in which Greenberg’s newest synthesis of his ideas bring him back into conversation with the Modern Orthodox community.

Zach Truboff explores Rav Kook's fascinating philosophy of history, focusing on five recently translated essays.

With the aid of some new primary sources, David Curwin offers a fresh view of the Rav's embrace of Rambam and his most important writings.

In honor of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’s fifth yahrtzeit, we present Steven Gotlib's study of Rabbi Sacks's longstanding criticism of the religious worldview of Rabbi Dr. Joseph B. Soloveitchik.

Forty years ago, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik changed women's Torah education forever. Rabbi Saul Berman tells us how that happened.