Retiring My Modern Orthodox DeLorean

Zev Eleff offers a rejoinder and some reflections on "What if Rav Aharon Had Stayed?"

Renew Our Days as Days of Old

On Yom Ha'atzmaut, Zach Truboff reflects on Rav Shagar's insistence that the Israeli present must be rooted in the past, and explores the redemptive power of Torah as an answer for modernity.

The G-d of Our Faces

Merri Ukraincik contemplates G-d's role in our lives.

The Shekhinah as a Tool for Political Critique: The Mystico-Political Thought of Rabbi Menachem...

Twelve years after the passing of R. Menachem Froman, his daughter-in-law, the scholar and activist Tchiya Froman, considers R. Froman’s literary critique of the Gush Emunim settlement enterprise and his determination that Judaism requires a feminine revolution.

Countering Counter-History: Re-Considering Rav Aharon’s Road Not Taken

Tovah Lichtenstein responds to and critiques Zev Eleff's counter-history, "What if Rav Aharon Had Stayed?"

On the Educational Mission of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik

Seth Farber explores the Rav's 1932 in local Boston historical context.

An Academic-Hasidic Love of Torah

Yakov Z. Mayer reflects on the life of a remarkable Hasidic academic.

There’s No Need to Sacrifice Sacrifice: A Response to Rabbi Herzl Hefter

Tzvi Sinensky responds to Herzl Hefter's Akeida essay.

A Temple in Our Days:  A Long-Overdue Conversation 

Our traditional longing for the rebuilding of the Beit Ha-Mikdash elides uncomfortable questions about the dramatic differences between sacrificial worship and our current models of serving God. Meir Kraus argues that the time has come to engage in this difficult conversation, especially in light of the growing religious-political movement to restore Jewish presence on the Temple Mount. Kraus also proposes an “alternative vision” for a future Temple era.

Separation of Powers and Majority Rule: Insights from the Talmud, Maimonides, Spinoza, and Mendelssohn

This article was written and accepted for publication in the summer of 5783/2023 and scheduled to appear after the holidays. Because of the outbreak of Israel’s “Iron Swords” war with Ḥamas following the murderous attack on Israel on Shabbat/Simḥat Torah (7 October, 2023), we agreed that publication needed to be postponed. Now, five months into the war with no end in sight, we are nevertheless witness to renewed political tensions, public demonstrations, disagreements and paralysis in appointing judges and the President of the Supreme Court, together with resumption of talk of the “judicial reform.” Despite the continuing tragedy of the war in the south and warfare in the north, a review of how our sources treat the separation of powers and majority rule may help us avoid repeating some of the mistakes of the pre-war political and ideological divisions in Israel and contribute to a more reasoned consideration of the issues.