Holidays

Yosef Lindell argues that the Haggadah focuses on the story of the Exodus rather than on the laws of the paschal sacrifice as a way of looking forward towards the future redemption.

As we approach Pesach, Bruce Black's latest poem vividly retells the splitting of the sea.

In his latest for the Lehrhaus, Dan Ornstein creatively imagines the story of the Talmudic sage Rabbi Yohanan through his teachings on the Book of Job. The short story is followed by a reflection on the methodology and power of "contemporary midrash."

David Zvi Kalman reviews Koren Publishers’ new graphic novel version of Megillat Esther.

For Parshat Zakhor, this short story by Shira Eliaser richly imagines the world of King Saul and the clandestine encounter that brought Haman’s Amalekite ancestors into the world.

Daniel Berkove shows how parallels between the building of the Tabernacle and the building of Pharaoh's storage cities shed light on the differences between civilizations that those structures represent.

In this whimsical story, David Zvi Kalman takes an information theory perspective in tackling what it might have been like for Moses to receive the Law.

Why did the women bring musical instruments out of Egypt? In her first Lehrhaus article, musicologist Rebecca Cypess draws a fascinating historical analogy between biblical and African-American slavery to shed light on the Exodus in Jewish tradition.

Outside the Land of Israel, we add an extra day to several holidays. Michael Kurin wonders: why not on Hanukkah?

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.