Scholarship

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.

Two readers respond to Michael Broyde's recent article on time-bound commandments. Leah Sarna critiques Broyde's omission of female scholarship, and Avi Siegal argues that Broyde's unifying theory skews the data.

Dina Brawer explores "certainty" and "doubt" in rabbinic tradition.

William Gerwitz explains the scientific knowledge needed to fully understand the Jewish calendar.

Joshua Yuter considers rabbinic conceptions of justice in the age of #metoo.

What exactly did Rav Moshe Feinstein hold regarding our obligations toward secular law? Does Halakhah distinguish between the first forty days and afterward for gentiles? Michael Broyde responds to his critics.

Rav Ronen Neuwirth suggests that the strictures of social distancing enable us to reduce this year's Lag BaOmer bonfires - which he sees as a very good thing.

Alan Jotkowitz reviews the latest volume of Dr. Haym Soloveitchik’s collected essays, bringing us back to the world of medieval Ashkenaz.

William Gewirtz explores the value of cantillation.

Contemporary physicians have been heroic in the battle against COVID-19, but what was it like to be one of a handful of Jewish doctors confronting the Bubonic Plague during the 17th-century in Italy? Prolific medical halakhist and historian Eddie Reichman takes a close look at the four Jewish graduates of the Padua medical school class of 1623.