Holidays

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.

Countless explanations have been offered to explain the debate between Beit Hillel and Beit Shamai as to whether we light the Hanukkah candles in ascending or descending order. Yet remarkably, Hannah Abrams manages to offer a strikingly novel reading of this debate. Her analysis is well worth the read.

As the year turns from Elul to Tishrei, enjoy Ben Corvo's collection of poems relevant to the High Holiday themes and liturgy.

David Schwartz explores thematic similarities between the Hanukkah miracle and Pharaoh’s dreams.

Esther Lindell reviews “The Haggadah about Nothing,” Rabbi Sam Reinstein’s not-too-serious exploration of how the Haggadah relates to Seinfeld, the ever-popular 90s sitcom.

Stuart Halpern explains how, when faced with uncertainty, danger, and personal and communal hardships, Americans have turned to the story of the Exodus for inspiration.

Rabbi Kenneth Brander, head of Ohr Torah Stone, explores what the daily blessing on Talmud Torah can teach us about how to foster religious continuity.

Ari Lamm offers a retrospective on the music of Steely Dan and its significance for Rosh Hashanah.

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.