Jewish Thought and History

In his latest for the Lehrhaus, Aton Holzer sheds light on the hidden roots of Hanukkah–exploring the political and theological meaning of the holiday from the Second Temple period through the Talmud.

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.

In his first article for the Lehrhaus, Akiva Garner explores the phenomenon of vulnerability through both Jewish texts and modern psychology–and highlights its unrecognized significance in Jewish living and meaning.

Aaron Segal reviews Staying Human by Harris Bor.

Yosef Lindell recounts the controversy surrounding different attempts at translating the Tishrei prayers.

Aton Holzer offers an existential perspective on the transition from Yom Kippur to Sukkot and applies some Heideggerian concepts to the festival of gathering.

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

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

In his latest for the Lehrhaus, Steven Gotlib reviews the recently published collection of essays, Strauss, Spinoza, and Sinai: Orthodox Judaism and Modern Questions of Faith, which tries to answer: is there a philosophical defense of Orthodoxy in the modern world?

For Parshat Naso, Lehrhaus editor Yosef Lindell compares three twentieth-century rereadings of the Sotah ritual that make the passage more palatable to modern audiences.