Reviews

Ben Rothke reviews Harold Gans's new book The Cosmic Puzzle: A Scientific Investigation into the Existence of God, asking the question: Is the proof of God best left to the scientific method?

Louis Jacobs, the controversial British rabbi and theologian, died 15 years ago. Steven Gotlib reviews Harry Freedman’s new book on Jacobs’ life, and considers how what happened to Jacobs should inform the way we draw the boundaries of Orthodoxy today.

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.

The Agnon scholar, Jeffrey Saks, sees some Agnonian work in modern Israeli literature.

Gila Bieler-Hoch reviews Hilkhot Nashim, published by JOFA and Maggid Books.

Shlomo Zuckier reviews Rav Aharon Lichtenstein's just-released book on teshuvah

In this review of Professor Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin's new book on the ideology of exile in the thought of the Safed Kabbalists, Aron Wander unpacks an alternate proposal for Jewish national self-understanding that seeks to elevate, rather than negate, the Jewish people's exilic experiences.

Suzanne Last Stone reviews Chaim Saiman's Halakhah: The Rabbinic Idea of Law.

How successful is the new book, Reclaiming Dignity: A Guide to Tzniut for Men and Women, at setting forth a new Torah-based vision for modesty? Laurie Novick offers a careful review, carefully considering both the personal essays and halakhic/hashkafic analyses set forward in this important work.

In his newest review, former Lehrhaus webmaster Steve Gotlib looks at Hasidim, Suffering and Renewal: The Prewar and Holocaust Legacy of Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira and examines scholars’ differing views on whether the Aish Kodesh experienced a crisis of faith due to the Holocaust.