Modern

Zach Truboff looks at the miracle of the Hanukkah oil through the lens of Franz Rosenzweig and emphasizes the importance of the belief in miracles for a meaningful religiosity.

Marina Zilbergerts presents the philosophical questions posed by Chaim Grade's “My Quarrel with Hersh Rasseyner,” and compares his arguments to those of other major thinkers such as Voltaire, Rousseau, Dostoevsky, and Nietzsche.

Is true forgiveness possible? Michael Kurin explores the doubts raised by prominent twentieth century philosophers and considers how Jewish tradition offers a radically different conception of repentance and forgiveness, one that enables people to alter their reality vis-à-vis God and one another.

Ilan Fuchs reviews Naomi Seidman’s book Sarah Schenirer and the Bais Yaakov Movement.

Elli Fischer's thoughts on visiting the grave of Franz Rosenzweig, founder of the original Lehrhaus

AJ Berkovitz traces the reception history of a Midrash Tehillim that seems to equate the reading of Psalms with Torah study, offering a fascinating case study of how tradition evolves.

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

This essay by Aaron Zeitlin—originally published in Yiddish in 1967 and translated here into English by Daniel Kraft—explores Aaron’s father Hillel Zeitlin’s approach to anti-semitism by way of the Book of Jonah.

In 1927, Rabbi Boruch Ber Leibowitz wrote a poem, an ode to Rabbi Hayyim Soloveitchik of Brisk. Nati Helfgot provides the background and a translation.

In honor of Yud Shevat, The Lehrhaus presents an excerpt from Eli Rubin’s forthcoming book Kabbalah and the Rupture of Modernity: An Existential History of Chabad Hasidism. Rubin explores the theological meaning of an influential series of discourses by the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, R. Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn.