Jewish Thought and History

Stu Halpern weighs in on the eternal wisdom Torah u-Madda offers the world during the fraught times in which we live.

Shalom Carmy The last couple of weeks have brought two worthwhile assessments of Rav Shagar’s Faith Shattered and Restored: Judaism in the Postmodern Age, Matt Lubin’s...

In part 1, Gil Perl argued that Modern Orthodox is in need of a Hedgehog Concept and put forward Or (la-)Goyim as a candidate for that role. In part 2, he details what this might look like in practice and why it would appeal to our youth in a post-modern world.

Jews have been confronting the concept of exile for thousands of years. How did Jewish thinkers respond to this phenomenon? @Michael Weiner outlines three medieval responses.

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

Yehuda Fogel comments on the nature of controversy and dispute through the eyes of R. Nahman of Bratslav

The zogerke or firzogerin, once the vernacular translator in the women’s section of the synagogue, has faded into distant memory. Dalia Wolfson reimagines her for our times.

Did Rav Soloveitchik buy into Nietzsche’s critique of religion? Alex Ozar reviews Daniel Rynhold and Michael Harris’s book, which surprisingly argues that the answer to this question is yes.

In honor of Flag Day, Michael Bernstein argues that national flags do not belong in our shul sanctuaries. Drawing on halakhic responsa, news reports, and photographic evidence, Bernstein locates the practice of displaying flags in shuls in its historical context and proposes that flags do not ever belong in prayer spaces.

In commemoration of the upcoming Sheloshim of Rav Moshe Kahn, Mindy Schwartz Zolty shares a Hesped of her teacher in which she discusses his derekh ha-limmud and his derekh as a melamed.