Torah Personalities

Yitzchak Blau and Michael Broyde respond to recent articles that have driven conversation.

With the 10th yarhtzeit of Rav Yehuda Amital, founding Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Har Etzion, upcoming this Sunday, we are honored to publish some poignant remembrances from his students. First up is Yehuda Mirsky of Brandeis University, who recalls his last conversation with Rav Amital.

Mahnaz Moazami's reflection commemorating the passing of Yaakov Elman, ob"m.

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.

In December 1932, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik had just arrived in Boston and outlined his vision for Orthodox Jewish education in the United States.

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

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.

Shmuel Lamm examines Rabbi Norman Lamm's sermons for insights on a crucial issue.

Those of us who feel deeply connected and indebted to Hasidism should ask ourselves a difficult and perhaps painful question: Is Netivot Shalom the sefer that we want to represent us to the rest of Am Yisrael?

The most enjoyable feature of the book is the brilliant and creative integration of the daily Talmudic folio Kurshan studies with experiences of her life.