Culture

With the emerging Kneset leadership bringing together a broad range of political parties, consider Zach Truboff's review of Rav Shagar's writings (in honor of his upcoming yahrtzeit), which argue that Religious Zionist thought must transcend the old binary of Left and Right.

If Kant or Hegel had read Rambam or the Shulhan Arukh, they might have known that Jewish law does not actually proscribe the creation of images. But that was not the way of history. It is important to reclaim visual culture and aesthetics for religious Judaism so that beauty can be allowed to inspire halakhically bound actions, to color worship, and give meaning to our rituals.

A passionate sonnet by Yocheved Friedman in memory of the Rav, zt'l.

Rav Ronen Neuwirth suggests that the strictures of social distancing enable us to reduce this year's Lag BaOmer bonfires - which he sees as a very good thing.

Yaakov Jaffe analyzes the multiple meanings of a medieval Jewish poem and popular Shabbat table song.

David Berger's eulogy for Revel's late Prof. Arthur Hyman, a leading scholar of Medieval Jewish philosophy.

In this thoughtful essay, Cypess reflects on the melody that is carrying Israel in the wake of October 7th.

Harris Bor meditates on the world of Passover in his new poem for the Lehrhaus.

How did early modern rabbis respond to the Scientific Revolution? Eli Clark reviews Maoz Kahana's new book A Heartless Chicken.

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?