Holidays

Shimon Laufer examines how Rabbinic understanding of the holiday of Passover influenced the holiday of Purim, and how one of the oldest manuscripts of the Mishnah hints that the converse may be true as well.

The Talmudic story of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza is often used to highlight the destructive consequences of baseless hatred. In an intriguing reading, David Hellman suggests that the hatred that motivated the tale’s participants is more complex than meets the eye.

Yaakov Jaffe explores four themes of Psalm 24 as recited on the second day of Rosh Hashanah.

Tikva Hecht’s moving elegy for her mother, a lyric essay told in verse and art, reflects on the fragility of life and the final confession we recite in the Yom Kippur Amidah.

Shlomo Zuckier seeks and uncovers rabbinic-Biblical intertextuality.

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

Yaakov Jaffe explores Yehuda Ha-Levi's Yom Le-Yabasha.

In his Yiddish poem "Hanukkah" (1932), Avrom Liessen poignantly recalled his early experience of the holiday. Dov Greenwood's vivid translation transports us into that wondrous world.

David Fried offers a novel reading of the Akeidah.

In this riveting short story, Leah Cypess retells a medieval Shavuot legend of how a Jewish community was saved from a deadly sorcerer.