Personal Reflections

What is it like to make aliyah from New Jersey precisely at a time when North American Jewry is suffering more heavily than Israel? Ahead of Yom Yerushalayim, Sarah Rindner, drawing on Yehuda ha-Levi and Yehudah Amichai, reflects.

Malka Simkovich with a careful reading of the work of the late Leonard Cohen.

Nathaniel Helfgot reflects on all of the things he needed to know as a rabbi that he didn’t learn in rabbinical school.

Ayelet Wenger on women and Torah and Talmud and some things (that get) in between.

As the tumultuous events of 2020 continue into the heady days of summer, the Lehrhaus is looking back, with short reflections on the moments we have been thinking about. Our first reflection is from new Lehrhaus editor Yosef Lindell, thinking about his lonely return to communal prayer.

Zach Truboff draws on personal experience in considering the place of Yizkor on Yom Tov.

Alex Fleksher explores the intersection between Hamilton and the ba'al teshuvah experience. 

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

We will all be much more distant from each other this Rosh Hashanah. That’s why, argues Ranana Dine, it’s time to revive the tradition of sending physical greeting cards.

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.