Holidays

Judah Kerbel explores how differing approaches to listening to music during Sefirat ha-Omer balance the appropriate role for subjectivity in halakhic decision-making.

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.

We will all be much more distant from each other this Rosh Hashanah. That’s why, argues Ranana Dine, it’s time to revive the tradition of sending physical greeting cards.

Yaakov Jaffe traces the origins and evolution of the custom to shake the lulav in different directions.

How did Esther shape the way Puritans saw the ideal role of the contemporary woman? Cotton Mather, a major player in the Salem Witch Trials, had much to say in his Ornaments for the Daughters of Zion. Stuart Halpern of Yeshiva University explains, wishing us all a Puritan Purim.

"Who Knows" seems to have become a recurring question for so many of us. Erica Brown shares personal and biblical reflections on the meaning of this phrase for the age of coronavirus.

Shimon Lerner uncovers a surprising but profound message that goes to the very heart of the Purim story.

Batya Hefter explores a Hasidic understanding of “Sinai consciousness” and proposes a way to re-experience it on Shavuot.

"Ha lahma anya" is one of the first paragraphs recited at the Seder - and its strange features have been baffling commentators for centuries. Elli Fischer adds his reflections to the mix.

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.