Holidays

Why is the Haggadah such a disorganized text? Lehrhaus editor Yosef Lindell offers a strikingly novel approach to the dynamic nature of the Passover seder.

The Poland trip has become de rigueur for Modern Orthodox gap-year students. But seismic changes in contemporary Poland and shifting trends in Modern Orthodoxy mean that the content and meaning of these trips are different than they used to be. David I. Bernstein, who has been leading Poland trips since 1992, tells the story of the student Poland experience, then and now.

Tzvi Sinensky suggests that the Megillah itself confronts the question of Purim's legitimacy.

Miriam Zami’s essay, runner-up to Hadar's annual Ateret Zvi Prize, uncovers the political and theological resistance of Rabbi Akiva’s laughter in the wake of the destruction of the Temple.

In time for Tisha Be-Av, Marc Eichenbaum offers a meaningful new reading of Eikha using modern psychological concepts like grief, trauma, and narrative construction.

In a rare piece of Lehrhaus Purim Torah, Mark Glass explores—with surprising halakhic rigor—whether the Pokémon named Bulbasaur’s use of a Solar Beam attack would constitute cooking on Shabbat.

  Zach Truboff In 1933, as the month of Elul approached, the Jewish people faced a frightening array of dangers. That year, Hitler consolidated power as...

In the spirit of Hanukkah, Yaakov Jaffe offers an intriguing thesis tying together a series of Mishnayot in the fourth chapter of Pirkei Avot: they are all responding to various aspects of Epicurean philosophy.

David Polsky explores the similarities and differences between Hamas and the Jewish Zealots at the time of the destruction of the Second Temple.

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