Holidays

The Maccabees were renowned as gibborim. But what exactly is gevurah, and what does it mean for dicussions about manhood and Zionism? Tzvi Sinensky uses Hanukkah as a starting point for this contemporary conversation.

Yosef Lindell examines how Yehudah ha-Levi's kinnah about the bubbling blood of Zechariah modifies the story found in Talmudic sources and thus tackles the question of theodicy.

This year, instead of thinking about the reasons for Jonah’s flight from Nineveh in particular, we can gain a new appreciation for his need to break free altogether. Ahead of Yom Kippur, Erica Brown considers the unique resonance of the book of Jonah in an era marked by isolation and quarantine.

Ezra Sivan presents a new analysis of Shabbat and how it throws light on so much more in the Torah.

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

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

Eli Genauer explores the profound impact of a printing error on the halakhot of Pesah.

Meir Ekstein contransts Rav Soloveitchik’s and Rav Lichtenstein’s respective approaches to Teshuva.

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.

Yaakov Jaffe examines Yehudah Ha-Levi's High Holiday poem "Yashen, Al Teradam"