Jewish Thought and History

Why do Orthodox Jews vote the way they do? Zev Eleff builds a case, using some unconventional data. 

Tamar Ron Marvin argues for the importance of recognizing a Jewish idea of Aliyat Ha-Dorot.

Leah Sarna contributes to the Lehrhaus Symposium on the recent OU statement regarding female clergy.

Historian Jonathan Sarna places a recent decision by an Orthodox synagogue to modify the "prayer for the government" into sharp historical focus.

Is God revealed through our speech? In his review of Ariel Evan Mayse’s Speaking Infinities, Steven Gotlib explores this question in the thought of the Maggid of Mezritch.

In this essay, written in honor of Yom Yerushalayim, Bezalel Naor explores the differing visions for the ideal state held by Plato and the Rabbis, Maimonides and Rabbi Nahman of Breslov.

Natan Oliff explores the theological implications of teshuva in a world that is God’s prescripted story.

Daniel Klein on how violence in the Bible plays out in the writings of Shadal and Gabriel Gárcia Márquez

Tzvi Sinensky reimagines the utilitarian case for Torah u-Madda. Far from seeing the study of Madda as a concession to the need to earn a livelihood, the new utilitarianism uses cutting-edge scholarship to solve some of the most pressing problems in our schools and communities.

Why did the women bring musical instruments out of Egypt? In her first Lehrhaus article, musicologist Rebecca Cypess draws a fascinating historical analogy between biblical and African-American slavery to shed light on the Exodus in Jewish tradition.