Personal Reflections

What can the Talmud teach us about living through a pandemic? Avi Strausberg argues that it teaches us quite a bit about strengthening acts of kindness and solidarity in our communities.

Sarah Rindner considers Moana's Disney revolution and its Jewish parallels.

Zev Eleff offers a rejoinder and some reflections on "What if Rav Aharon Had Stayed?"

In a moving reflection, Mali Moskowitz explores her life as a rebbetzin, lawyer, and wife, and asks: can there be a rebbetzin without a rabbi?

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.

Award-winning poet Yehoshua November offers his thoughts on the connection between mystical intimacy and poetry.

The Yom Kippur War was a defining moment in the life of poet Leonard Cohen, a moment when his entire spiritual destiny hung in the balance. Bezalel Naor on Cohen's priestly imagination.

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.

In a moving personal essay, Joshua Stadlan explores a famous Purim midrash with the commentary of Rav Soloveitchik to reflect on his life, religious journey, and relationship with God.

Shumel Hain discusses how we can bridge the "Tragic Gap" between the world envisioned in the blessing on budding fruit tress and our current reality of pandemic and tragedy