Coronavirus

Shlomo Zuckier explores competing theological trends underlying rabbinic guidance at the beginning of the Coronavirus pandemic.

How did the Talmud look at plagues? Miriam Reisler offers a close reading of a key halakhic and narrative section of Bava Kama.

This year, instead of thinking about the reasons for Jonah’s flight from Nineveh in particular, we can gain a new appreciation for his need to break free altogether. Ahead of Yom Kippur, Erica Brown considers the unique resonance of the book of Jonah in an era marked by isolation and quarantine.

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.

Erica Brown considers the little-discussed prohibition on planting during the Nine Days and what it teaches about the nature of mourning and joy.

How did major segments of Orthodoxy come to devalue the importance of community-wide health? David Werdiger of Australia considers this and more in this insightful exploration of Orthodox responses to COVID.

Sharon Galper Grossman and Shamai Grossman examine the halakhic permissibility of vaccine mandates by governments and employers.

Whom did the Spanish Flu take from our community 100 years ago? Zev Eleff introduces us to the forgotten legacy of Solomon Hurwitz, the founding principal of Yeshiva University's boys' high school, and a pioneer of Torah U-madda.

Sharon Galper Grossman and Shamai A. Grossman, leading doctors writing from quarantine, explain why even the Noda be-Yehuda, who requires that the sick person be before us, would agree that a public health crisis is subject to the leniencies of pikuah nefesh.

Gabriel Greenberg looks at a Talmudic passage on what to do when you don’t know which day is Shabbat and the insights it provides for our current situation.