Holidays

Michael Kurin explores different interpretations of what marks an end of mourning the destruction of the Beit HaMikdash.

One of the central concerns of the work of Rav Shagar is translation, in both its literal and figurative versions. Michael Blank explores Rav Shagar's use and conception of translation by examining the way he puts the writings of Rebbe Nachman, Jacque Lacan, and Emmanuel Levinas in conversation.

Whose idea was Sinai? A midrash contends that Sinai was first conceived by Jethro. Ezra Zuckerman Sivan supports this Midrash from the Torah's text, and explains why Jethro was the appropriate vehicle for providing the rationale of Sinai.

The biblical account of the holiday we refer to as Shavuot bears no relationship at all to the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. The emergence of the association between this harvest festival and the Sinai covenant has therefore occupied both traditional and academic thinkers for centuries. Tzvika Aviv argues for a previously unexplored approach to the question, one which bridges the mystical insights of the Zohar with current scientific knowledge regarding wheat genetics.

Chaim Katz examines the commonplace assumption that Rabbi Akiva's students died as a consequence of the Bar Kokhva rebellion, showing how the details depict a more nuanced story and provide a clue as to how Rabbi Akiva's Torah was passed down.

A novel medieval interpretation by R. Yehudah ha-Levi about the counting of the omer may have a surprising basis in rabbinic countering of heresy.

Peninah Taragin Gershman I once made a Holocaust joke. It was not intentional, and it was not planned, but I said it, and it landed...

נמשלת ללבנה ניסן תשפ׳ו שושנה הברמן והוצאתי והצלתי וגאלתי .ולקחתי כאיילת השחר שבקע אורה ,כך היא גאולתן של ישראל ,בתחילה קימעא קימעא כל מה שהיא הולכת .היא רבה, והולכת ?היינו כחולמים -בזמן שהרועה תועה .תועין אחריו -אבל אפילו בצל...

In this essay, Steve Lipman compares how the Black American community and how the Jewish American community commemorate their slavery narratives.

The worldview and thought process of Haman bear an uncanny resemblance to those of contemporary antisemitic movements. Drawing on the work of French psychoanalyst Jacque Lacan, Zach Truboff explores the fantasy at the heart of Haman's rage, takes note of its contemporary echoes, and proposes that Jews must beware of stumbling into our own version of this fantasy. This essay was written before the war with Iran. That Khamenei, who embodied the antisemitic fantasy as fully as any figure in our lifetime, was eliminated on the eve of Purim requires no commentary beyond what the Megillah itself provides.