Culture

Naima Hirsch Gelman provides three powerful poems exploring important themes in halakhic womanhood.

Tzvi Sinensky reviews the new volume about R. Aharon Lichtenstein from Divrei Shir’s Hebrew-language “Gedolei ha-Umah le-Yaldei Yisrael,” explaining why it is a must-read for adults and children alike.

Yaakov Taubes examines three hypothetical “What if?” books and what they can teach us about history, science, and halakhah.

In his latest for the Lehrhaus, Steven Gotlib reviews the recently published collection of essays, Strauss, Spinoza, and Sinai: Orthodox Judaism and Modern Questions of Faith, which tries to answer: is there a philosophical defense of Orthodoxy in the modern world?

In this imaginative short story from David Zvi Kalman, as synagogue attendance shrinks, the buildings themselves begin to grow.

What do you get when you read George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda alongside Rav Soloveitchik’s Kol Dodi Dofek? A cross between Zionism and feminism, argues Eileen Watts.

Judah Kerbel explores how differing approaches to listening to music during Sefirat ha-Omer balance the appropriate role for subjectivity in halakhic decision-making.

What can we learn from Rav Kook's writings before he immigrated to the land of Israel? As Yom Ha-Atzma'ut approaches, Levi Morrow reviews Yehuda Mirsky's new prehistory of Rav Kook.

As we prepare for Passover, enjoy these three poems by Bruce Black meditating on the past, present, and future of our Exodus.

The debate about Torah u-Madda and pop culture continues. Noah Marlowe argues that Chaim Potok's literature offers a useful conceptual framework for, and embodiment of, a profound confrontation between Judaism and elite elements of general culture.