Torah Personalities

The Ne’ilah prayer, which we recite only once a year, clearly represents a moment of great religious drama, but its precise nature and purpose are somewhat mysterious. Alan Jotkowitz presents four different models for understanding Ne’ilah, drawing upon the teachings of Rav Yehuda Amital, Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, and Rav Ya’akov Medan.

Martin Lockshin reviews Daniel A. Klein’s translation of Samuel David Luzzatto’s commentary on the Book of Vayikra, the latest volume in Klein’s project to translate all of Shadal’s insightful and ever-interesting Torah commentary.

Today, we share letters to the editor by Ephraim Chamiel, Steven Gotlib, and Moshe Kurtz.

In honor of Yud Shevat, The Lehrhaus presents an excerpt from Eli Rubin’s forthcoming book Kabbalah and the Rupture of Modernity: An Existential History of Chabad Hasidism. Rubin explores the theological meaning of an influential series of discourses by the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, R. Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn.

Who's the Pioneer of Hasidic Literature, Most Important Zionist, and Defender of the Masorah? Shlomo Zuckier explores Ahron Marcus' legacy.

The Hasidic work, Aish Kodesh, under the scholarly microscope, by Henry Abramson.

In a never-before-published memoir, Rabbi Joseph H. Lookstein recalls the politics that surrounded Yeshiva University upon the death of President Bernard Revel and the search for his successor. 

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.

Alan Jotkowitz reflects on Rabbi Moshe Tendler’s unique contributions to Jewish medical ethics.

Ari Elias-Bachrach examines the Israel Cheif Rabbi's recent decision not to bury the mother of a get-refuser.