Torah and Technology

Ari Elias-Bachrach explores the science behind lab-produced meat and cheese and the possibility of a realistic kosher cheeseburger.

Jonathan Ziring explores the innovative nature of different Halakhic rulings permitting violating Shabbat to save non-Jewish lives.

At what point in Jewish thought does artificial intelligence go too far? In this short story, Olga Lempert writes about a world where humanity itself might be replaced by the machines they create

Aaron Segal reviews Staying Human by Harris Bor.

Recent years have seen dramatic changes in the packaging of Taharat ha-Mishpahah education on Instagram, from video reels to influencers to new, diverse online communities. Lindsey Bodner offers an astute, well-researched review of this new paradigm shift in Taharat ha-Mishpahah education today.

Sefaria has recently published a new bilingual digital edition of Talmud Yerushalmi. Taking stock of this development, Zachary Rothblatt offers an erudite synthesis of the history of Yerushalmi.

In response to recent articles by Ezra Schwartz and Nathaniel Helfgot on the issue of centralization, Jeffrey Fox offers a vision of collaborative, personalized pesak in the post-Covid era.

Can we learn Torah from Star Wars, superheroes, or the hit Netflix show ‘The Crown’? Olivia Friedman, a teacher at Ida Crown Jewish Academy in Chicago, says yes, arguing that bringing pop culture into the Judaic studies classroom in a meaningful way not only makes learning more fun, but models the type of integration that Modern Orthodoxy stands for.

In this response to last week’s article by Ezra Schwartz, Nathaniel Helfgot wonders whether the new pandemic-fueled trend toward centralized halakhic decision-making overburdens the most learned rabbis and takes too much autonomy from the others.

As the Covid-19 pandemic looks like it might be subsiding, Ezra Schwartz, a Rosh Yeshiva at Yeshiva University, incisively examines competing trends toward decentralization of synagogue life and centralization of halakhic decision-making that are reshaping the Modern Orthodox world.