Scholarship

Tzvi Goldstein's recent piece on Centrist and Haredi Orthodoxy has generated many responses from our readers. Today we share a response from Chaim Goldberg, who vigorously argues that the greatest pillar for contemporary Haredi ideology is not Ramhal's Mesilat Yesharim but Rav Hayyim Volozhin's Nefesh Ha-Hayyim.

In his first and last foray in this field, Zev Eleff tries his hand at some Modern Orthodox counter-history.  

Shimon Laufer examines how Rabbinic understanding of the holiday of Passover influenced the holiday of Purim, and how one of the oldest manuscripts of the Mishnah hints that the converse may be true as well.

In a follow up to her recent piece about Joseph, Batya Hefter traces Judah's character development through the eyes of the Ishbitz-Radzyn masters.

Beth Kissileff on the book of Jonah and its relevance on Sukkot.

Many synagogue goers found the abbreviated High Holiday services we recently concluded quite appealing. Need we eventually go back to the way it was before coronavirus? Not really, argues Moshe Kurtz, surveying the substantial halakhic support for shortening the services every year.

In light of the Supreme Court’s decision on Friday, Michael Broyde considers what American abortion law halakhah might prefer.

What was Alexander Hamilton's relationship to Judaism? In his review of a new book about Hamilton's Jewish world, Lehrhaus editor Yisroel Ben-Porat explores the arguments to be made for a "Jewish" founding father.

The call to learn Torah at night surprisingly comes from a verse in Lamentations. Yaakov Weinstein discusses what we can learn from this, and what it means for the practice of staying up on Shavuot.

Michael Broyde offers a new theory for why halakhah obligates women in some time-bound positive mitzvot and exempts them from others.