Torah Personalities

A series of reflections commemorating the passing of Yaakov Elman, of blessed memory.

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.

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.

Yiscah Smith explores the conceptions of teshuvah presented in the writings of the Piaseczner Rebbe and the Ba’al Ha-Tanya, identifying in them a novel approach to personal growth that speaks to contemporary Jews.

Levi Morrow reviews four new books that examine and apply the thought of R. Joseph B. Solovetichik of blessed memory. Image: below

Henry Abramson debates Shaul Magid on the faith of the Aish Kodesh.

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.

Bezalel Naor translates and contextualizes a poem by Pinchas Peli about the home of Rav Kook.

The biblical figure of Esther is often interpreted by traditional and modern commentators as a heroine of active leadership. Naama Sadan offers a novel perspective, according to which Esther confronts national crisis in female-coded ways, triumphing and saving her people through internally-focused activism.

The Haredi community in Israel and its institutions have resisted army service and other forms of societal integration since the founding of the State. As the controversy over drafting Haredi citizens continues to feature in headlines, Nathaniel Helfgot revisits a well-known but underexplored episode in early Israeli history: the meeting and correspondence between Prime Minister David Ben Gurion and Rabbi Avraham Yeshaya Karelitz, known as the Hazon Ish.