A Call for Order: Maimonides and the Mishnah
Yaakov Taubes explores the background to Maimonides’s explanation for how the Mishnah is ordered.
Insanity and Hope
Warren Zev Harvey reflects on the pain and fear of Israel’s current moment, finding unexpected hope in R. Joseph Kaspi’s anti-deterministic theory of history. The essay was originally published in Hebrew and translated by the author.
The Poet’s Rabbi
In this essay, Brandon Marlon analyzes the presence of Ibn Ezra in the poetry of Robert Browning.
Rabbeinu Bahya and the Case of the Mysterious Medieval Lightning Rod
Did Rabbeinu Bahya mention a lightning rod centuries before it was discovered? Yaakov Taubes takes us on a journey through science, magic, and religion to help explain this medieval commentator’s cryptic comment about the Tower of Babel.
In God’s Country: The “Zionism” of Rashi’s First Comment
Elli Fischer reads one of Rashi's most famous comments against the grain.
Purim and Paul: The Torah Veiled and Unveiled
What do Paul, Purim costumes, and Purim torah all have in common? Yehuda Fogel delves into the meaning of hiddenness and its role in revelation on Purim.
Man is not God: The Limits of Imitatio Dei
David Fried clarifies the concept of imitating God through Rashi's oft-neglected reading of “It is not good for man to be alone”
God Is Other People
In a chapter adapted from his new book, Be, Become, Bless: Jewish Spirituality between East and West, Yaakov Nagen suggests based on the Zohar that the world endures when we see Godliness in another person's face.
The Daring Theology of the Kinnah of the Maharam
Yaakov Jaffe examines the anti-Christian polemic in Maharam of Rottenberg's Kinnah about the burning of the Talmud.
A Tribute to Arthur Hyman z”l: Scholar, Teacher, and Exemplary Human Being
David Berger's eulogy for Revel's late Prof. Arthur Hyman, a leading scholar of Medieval Jewish philosophy.
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