Culture

Yisroel Ben-Porat offers historical, hashkafic, and personal reflections on what’s often called the “Judeo-Christian” tradition and whether a Torah u-Madda outlook can embrace the study of Christianity.

The Talmud criticizes the heretic Elisha ben Avuyah, or Aher, for listening to Greek music. But what did he do wrong? Todd Berman uses a close reading of Rashi’s comments on the Talmudic passage to explain.

In honor of the yahrtzeit of Dolce, the wife of Rabbi Eleazar of Worms, Chaya Sima Koenigsberg explores Rabbi Eleazar's moving elegy for his wife and reflects upon Dolce's character as a model for Koenigsberg's own life and the lives of Jewish women today.

Jennie Rosenfeld reviews David Bashevkin's "Sin-a-gogue: Sin and Failure in Jewish Thought."

Shmuel Hain Reviews Chaim Saiman's Halakhah: The Rabbinic Idea of Law.

In our saturated environment, can any contemporary work on hilkhot Shabbat break new ground? Ezra Schwartz explains that Rav Rimon's newest work does precisely this.

Mitchell First reviews Yehuda Landy's Purim and the Persian Empire.

Ben Rothke takes a sober look at a new book that tries to square Orthodox Judaism with New Age Medicine.

Sarah Rindner asks what the Book of Leviticus, Leonard Cohen and the Liberty Bell all have in common.

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.