Star-Spangled Synagogue: Do National Flags Belong in Our Houses of Worship?

On this flag day, Moshe Kurtz surveys the arguments for and against displaying national flags in synagogues.

Was the Sotah Meant to be Innocent?

For Parshat Naso, Lehrhaus editor Yosef Lindell compares three twentieth-century rereadings of the Sotah ritual that make the passage more palatable to modern audiences.

The Four R’s: An Orthodox Educational Framework for Engaging with Biblical Criticism

Thanks in part to several new publications, portions of the Orthodox world have been engaging with modern biblical scholarship in a more significant way than ever before. Gil Perl provides a four-step framework for how Jewish days schools might profitably teach many aspects of biblical criticism that do not conflict with our mesorah.

Priests and Prejudice: Disability in Parashat Emor

Joshua Stadlan carefully explores the “blemishes” that invalidate a kohein for service in the Mishkan to argue that they were not an original part of God’s plan.

Subjective Experience in Halakhah: Music During Sefirah as a Case Study

Judah Kerbel explores how differing approaches to listening to music during Sefirat ha-Omer balance the appropriate role for subjectivity in halakhic decision-making.

Renew Our Days as Days of Old

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.

Theologically Speaking: God, Language, and the Maggid of Mezritsh

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.

The Dark Side of Torah u-Madda: Chaim Potok and Core-to-Core Cultural Confrontation

The debate about Torah u-Madda and pop culture continues. Noah Marlowe argues that Chaim Potok's literature offers a useful conceptual framework for, and embodiment of, a profound confrontation between Judaism and elite elements of general culture.

Sanctifying the Secular: A Torah u-Madda Approach to Popular Culture

Responding to Moshe Kurtz, Olivia Friedman argues that forging deep connections between Torah and popular culture can be an uplifting and sanctified experience.

Letters to the Editor: The Boundaries of Torah u-Madda

The dynamic conversation continues with three letters to the editor widening our perspective on Torah u-Madda. Steve Gotlib grapples with the challenges of living Torah u-Madda in the real world; Ezequiel Antebi Sacca adds a Sephardic view from Argentina; and Eugene Korn adds insight to the Jewish view on Christianity.