Jewish Thought and History

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

Zev Eleff and Menachem Butler explore the reception of Moses Mendelssohn in American Orthodox Judaism, focusing on a curious commotion surrounding the bicentennial of Mendelssohn's death

Ariel Evan Mayse considers the neo-Hasidic approaches of Shlomo Carlebach and Zalman Schachter-Shalomi.

Marc B. Shapiro reviews a new edited volume by Yoram Hazony, Gil Student, and Alex Sztuden that offers a traditional defense of revelation in light of modern biblical criticism.

Can we imagine a world in which the Exodus never occurred? David Curwin suggests that this - as well as a broader dispute about the relationship between Torah and history - is subject to a dispute between The Rav, R. Joseph Dov he-Levi, and his namesake, the Beit ha-Levi.

Rabbi David Wolkenfeld explores the meaning of faith in this review of Rabbi Chaim Jachter's Reason to Believe

With lively and accessible prose, Tamar Ross clarifies her theology of the revelation at Sinai in contrast to more traditional formulations such as Yoram Hazony's.

The Brachos Bee, Zev Eleff argues, shows how Orthodox Jews Americanize and form their own particular religious subculture.

In his first and last foray in this field, Zev Eleff tries his hand at some Modern Orthodox counter-history.  

In honor of the recent release of Moshe Koppel's new Koren/Maggid book, Judaism Straight Up: Why Real Religion Endures, Elli Fischer traces the decades-long trajectory of Koppel's "Torah of the Kishkes" philosophy of Judaism.