Torah Personalities

What do you get when you read George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda alongside Rav Soloveitchik’s Kol Dodi Dofek? A cross between Zionism and feminism, argues Eileen Watts.

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.

Tzvi Sinensky responds to Lawrence Kaplan and continues the discussion on Mendelssohn and Jewish law.

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.

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

Shlomo Zuckier presents Rav Aharon Lichtenstein's own thoughts on academic Talmud.

  Yael Unterman   I dedicate this essay to my friend Dr. Tsippi Kauffman z”l, who passed away in the course of its writing. A wonderful educator,...

Drawing upon his expertise in Anglo-Jewish history, Benjamin Elton traces the intellectual journey and career of the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks zt"l. As a brilliant young scholar, Rabbi Sacks rose to prominence through the British Chief Rabbinate, but he transcended that role to become a global phenomenon.

Sarah's conspicuous absence from the dramatic Akeidah narrative is the subject of both traditional and scholarly interpretation. Michael Wolff offers an approach through the lens of gender roles.

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.