Jewish Thought and History

Yaakov Taubes explores the background to Maimonides’s explanation for how the Mishnah is ordered.

Elinatan Kupferberg argues that the boundaries between Torah and Madda have blurred and evolved throughout Jewish intellectual history. This erudite analysis upends our assumptions about Torah u-Madda and breathtakingly reimagines its past, present, and future.

Shlomo Spivack discusses the anti-spirituality of his teacher, Rav Menachem Froman.

Dovid Campbell explores sources indicating that curiosity is a Jewish value.

Zachary Truboff considers the experience of prayer, and what two recent publications on Tefillah emerging from the Religious Zionist community contribute.

Steven Gotlib reviews Raphael Zarum’s Questioning Belief: Torah and Tradition in an Age of Doubt.

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

Lawrence Kaplan responds to AJ Berkovitz’s article on the many conflicting interpretations of a passage in Midrash Tehillim, highlighting two different approaches advanced by Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik.

Shlomo Zuckier presents Rav Aharon Lichtenstein's own thoughts on academic Talmud.

Whom did the Spanish Flu take from our community 100 years ago? Zev Eleff introduces us to the forgotten legacy of Solomon Hurwitz, the founding principal of Yeshiva University's boys' high school, and a pioneer of Torah U-madda.