Medieval

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.

David Fried reviews The Golden Path: Maimonides Across Eight Centuries, the companion volume to the Yeshiva University Museum’s exhibit on Maimonides.

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.

Natan Oliff looks at the various ways Jewish thinkers have found meaning in determinism.

Jerome Marcus responds to Bezalel Naor's earlier essay, delving further into the worlds of Maimonides and Rabbi Nahman of Breslov.

Yaakov Jaffe examines Yehudah Ha-Levi's High Holiday poem "Yashen, Al Teradam"

Yaakov Taubes examines three hypothetical “What if?” books and what they can teach us about history, science, and halakhah.

In honor of the yahrtzeit of Dolce, the wife of Rabbi Eleazar of Worms, Chaya Sima Koenigsberg explores Rabbi Eleazar's moving elegy for his wife and reflects upon Dolce's character as a model for Koenigsberg's own life and the lives of Jewish women today.

Yaakov Jaffe analyzes the multiple meanings of a medieval Jewish poem and popular Shabbat table song.

Hasdai Crescas criticized Maimonides for counting belief as a Mitzvah, arguing that we have no control over what we believe. Dovid Campbell explores a surprisingly common defense of Maimonides that places his views closer to those of Crescas than we might have initially imagined.