Jewish Thought and History

With the aid of some new primary sources, David Curwin offers a fresh view of the Rav's embrace of Rambam and his most important writings.

Chesky Kopel looks at the various tellings and retellings of the controversial deal that Rudolph Kastner made with Nazi leadership in Budapest and argues that they represent a modern-day Midrashic presentation of the history.

Rashi’s commentary to Eruvin contains many explanatory diagrams. In anticipation of the Daf Yomi cycle’s study of the tractate beginning tomorrow, Eli Genauer shares some manuscripts that shed light on whether Rashi drew these pictures.

Shmuel Lamm examines Rabbi Norman Lamm's sermons for insights on a crucial issue.

Malka Simkovich provides a valuable corrective on the parameters of universalism in Judaism and Christianity.

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 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.

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.

William Kolbrener offers insight into the intellectual underpinnings of the Rav's 1932 interview recently re-published by The Lehrhaus.

A growing list of dati le’umi leaders and thinkers frame war as a desirable state and even an opportunity for spiritual elevation. Religious Israeli activist Ariel Shwartz traces this trend with alarm and argues that it contradicts deep-rooted Torah values. Translated by Mordechai Blau.