Scholarship

After six months suspended between quarantine, isolation, and uncertainty, it’s natural to want to run away from home, especially as Yom Kippur looms and we realize it’s time for a change. But, as Matthew Nitzanim explains, this understandable reaction would miss the point of Teshuvah: everything we need to work on is right here, wherever it is we find ourselves.

Mark Glass puts the Akeidah in conversation with the surrounding narratives of the book of Genesis.

Leead Staller argues for a more nuanced approach to euthanasia in Halakha.

Shlomo Zuckier surveys and analyzes the debate over Zoom Seders during coronavirus.

Marina Zilbergerts presents the philosophical questions posed by Chaim Grade's “My Quarrel with Hersh Rasseyner,” and compares his arguments to those of other major thinkers such as Voltaire, Rousseau, Dostoevsky, and Nietzsche.

Rabbi Josh Rosenfeld offers insight into the nature of the Jewish mystical tradition by examining some of Rashbi's stories. 

Those of us who feel deeply connected and indebted to Hasidism should ask ourselves a difficult and perhaps painful question: Is Netivot Shalom the sefer that we want to represent us to the rest of Am Yisrael?

Yehoshua Pfeffer on self-abnegating vs. life-affirming teshuva.

Natan Oliff explores the evolving role of truth throughout Tanakh and later Jewish history.

A response to Yosef Bronstein's study on Halakhah's engagement with societal norms