“Our Bread of Isolation”
How can we respond to a Seder during which it is prohibited to host guests? Yitzchak Etshalom and David Block each offer unique tefillot to be recited at our Seder table this year.
Review of After Adam
Laurance Wieder's After Adam was named the Book of the Year in 2019 by First Thing's John Wilson, but has been largely overlooked in the Jewish community. The Jewish Review of Book's Michal Leibowitz seeks to remedy this in her review of Wieder's lyrical retelling of the Bible.
When Kaddish Becomes Currency: Mapping Out the Mechanics of Merit
Moshe Kurtz explores several halakhic questions concerning the recitation of kaddish for the deceased, all of which point to a larger discussion about how one can confer merit on someone else.
The Beit Midrash in the Age of Snapchat
Shira Hecht-Koller
Earlier this year, Apple released the iPhone X. When the first iPhone was released in 2007, I was completing my second year of...
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.
This 9th of Av: Do We Sing with Yehudah Ha-Levi, or on Account of...
Rabbi Yaakov Jaffe comments on the poetry, context, and tension of Yehuda Ha-Levi's "Tziyon Halo Tishali" Kinnah.
Parshat Ki Tavo: The Curse of the Law
Baruch Sterman describes how an encounter with a missionary led him to a greater understanding of Ramban's commentary on this week's Parshah.
Korach
A poem on parshat Korach by Zohar Atkins
A “What If” Review: Hypothetical History, Science, and Halakhah
Yaakov Taubes examines three hypothetical “What if?” books and what they can teach us about history, science, and halakhah.
Lo Yilbash and Gender Difference: A Rejoinder to Moshe Kurtz
Responding to yesterday’s article by Moshe Kurtz, Lehrhaus editor Tzvi Sinensky presents an alternative read of the Mitzvah of lo yilbash.