Scholarship

In honor of yesterday's Daf Yomi Siyum on Masekhet Eiruvin, Yaakov Jaffe describes how online maps and other technological tools have better enabled communities such as Boston/Cambridge to measure their tehum shabbat.

Alex Ozar explores the significance of Torah study in the womb.

Tragic events this past summer brought a wave of protests against racial injustice that shows few signs of abating. Yitzhak Grossman shares how rabbinic leaders in the United States and Israel have historically approached the tactic of protest, and explores what their views might mean for our current moment.

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.

Tanya's description of the Godly soul as a literal portion of divinity is an empowering notion for many spiritual seekers. It is also, however, inconsistent with longstanding Jewish theological doctrine regarding the unity of God. Elisha Price examines several possible interpretations of Tanya's words, placing them in a broader kabbalistic and rabbinic context, to suggest that Chabad's conception of the soul is both "rational and precedented."

Why is the Haggadah such a disorganized text? Lehrhaus editor Yosef Lindell offers a strikingly novel approach to the dynamic nature of the Passover seder.

Tzvi Sinensky responds to Herzl Hefter's Akeida essay.

Alex Ozar analyzes the writings of R. Soloveitchik and several other contemporary Jewish thinkers to argue for the existence of a Mitzvah of become a prophet.

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.

Alan Kadish offers a vision for how Orthodox Jews should think about "chosenness."