She-Hehiyanu: An Endangered Blessing Species

It is customary to celebrate Tu Bi-Shevat by eating fruits and reciting the She-Hehiyanu blessing on them. This custom, however, has proved challenging in recent years as advances in technology have made it difficult to find new fruit—as defined by halakhah—to say the She-Hehiyanu

Why Do We Deserve God’s Favor?

Ezra Sivan probes the Sabbath and the Torah's call to love God.

Playing Dreidel with Kafka and Rabbi Nahman

Joey Rosenfeld takes Kafka and Rav Nahman for a spin, on their timely drey-ing of the tops!

“In Every Generation They Rise Up Against Us to Destroy Us”: How We Keep...

Malka Simkovich on the Hasmonean victories and the truth behind the Hanukkah miracle.

Was God Angry at Sarah?

Ben Greenfield God isn’t angry with Sarah, when she laughs at the idea of birthing a child in her old age (Gen. 18:12-15). God is...
binding of isaac

Some Thoughts on the Binding of Isaac

Jerome Marcus on the Akeidah: It's not about ethics vs. divine command, but about Hashem versus Elokim!

Don’t Forget David’s Literary Temple! A Rebuttal to Levi Morrow

Harvard Professor Jon Levenson weighs in on what stops the floodwaters: rabbinic creativity or the Temple!

Rabbinic Creativity and the Waters that would Consume the World

Levi Morrow explores how the Rabbis use creative exegesis to save the world from drowning in a flood

Can I Use Zip-Ties To Hold Down My Sekhakh?

Dan Margulies offers a rundown of the sukkah zip-tie construction, the next great halakhic frontier

Kohelet as Intertext

Theodicy, faith, and the meaning of life. Who got it right - Kohelet or our Yamim Noraim liturgy? Elana Stein Hain explores!