Scholarship

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.

In response to Tzvi Sinensky's earlier essay, Andrew Bennett presents Jewish legal scholar Robert Cover's and noted antisemite Carl Schmitt's thoughts on elu ve-elu.

Dan Jutan locates a fascinating meta-narrative within Rashi's commentary.

Mikey Lebrett examines the various Halakhic opinions on giving charity to non-Jewish people and causes.

The Talmud speaks of a mysterious passage on Bilam authored by Moses. What is it?

In his newest review, former Lehrhaus webmaster Steve Gotlib looks at Hasidim, Suffering and Renewal: The Prewar and Holocaust Legacy of Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira and examines scholars’ differing views on whether the Aish Kodesh experienced a crisis of faith due to the Holocaust.

At the height of the cholera epidemic in 1831, Hatam Sofer delivered a timely sermon on a perplexing midrash to Parshat Ki Tavo. The take-home, suggests Elli Fischer, is all-too familiar in the COVID era.

Chaim Saiman on halakhic change and the observance of Tisha Be-Av.

On Yom Ha'atzmaut, Zach Truboff reflects on Rav Shagar's insistence that the Israeli present must be rooted in the past, and explores the redemptive power of Torah as an answer for modernity.

A poem on parshat Korach by Zohar Atkins