The Gift of Shabbat as the Trace of God’s Caring Hand on our Faces
Ezra Zuckerman Sivan explains how an enigmatic passage in Masekhet Shabbat teaches us how we can use Shabbat to connect to an oft-hidden God.
Revelation Deferred but not Denied: the Golden Calf as a Rabbinic Origin Story
Amitai Bin-Nun provides a fresh and intriguing perspective on the story of the Golden Calf by reading it in light of the Talmudic passage in Menahot detailing an encounter between Moses and R. Akiba on Mt. Sinai where God is tying crowns to the letters of the Torah scroll.
Shots for Tots: Halakhah and COVID-19 Vaccination for Kids
Sharon Galper-Grossman and Shamai Grossman discuss the obligation for minors to get vaccinated.
Why Pandemics Happen to Good People
What theological language can we use to describe our current pandemic moment? In an excerpt from his forthcoming book, Jeremy Brown takes scope of the ancient and modern notions of plague theodicy and reviews some ideas from the 2021 National Jewish Book Award Winner Torah in a Time of Plague.
Vaccine Triage in Jewish Ethics – an Intermediate Approach
Aryeh Dienstag and Penina Dienstag respond to the articles by Sharon Galper-Grossman, Shamai Grossman, and Alan Jotkowitz regarding vaccine allocation.
Revival of the Forgotten Talmud
Sefaria has recently published a new bilingual digital edition of Talmud Yerushalmi. Taking stock of this development, Zachary Rothblatt offers an erudite synthesis of the history of Yerushalmi.
Nietzschean Man
Did Rav Soloveitchik buy into Nietzsche’s critique of religion? Alex Ozar reviews Daniel Rynhold and Michael Harris’s book, which surprisingly argues that the answer to this question is yes.
The First Yeshiva Exile
Reading R. Eliezer b. Hyrcanus and Shammai through an autistic lens, Liz Shayne explores how uncompromising, righteous anger can find a place in the beit midrash.
Rekindling the Holy Fire: Fighting over Faith in the Aish Kodesh
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.
A Kinnah in Kislev: The Enduring Elegy of Dolce of Worms
In honor of the yahrtzeit of Dolce, the wife of Rabbi Eleazar of Worms, Chaya Sima Koenigsberg explores Rabbi Eleazar's moving elegy for his wife and reflects upon Dolce's character as a model for Koenigsberg's own life and the lives of Jewish women today.
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