Scholarship

Leah Sarna contributes to the Lehrhaus Symposium on the recent OU statement regarding female clergy.

In the spirit of Hanukkah, Yaakov Jaffe offers an intriguing thesis tying together a series of Mishnayot in the fourth chapter of Pirkei Avot: they are all responding to various aspects of Epicurean philosophy.

Lehrhaus Founding and Consulting Editor Elli Fischer on why R. Mendel of Rimanov is said to have spoken about the man every Shabbat for 22 consecutive years, and why reciting parshat ha-man the Tuesday before Parshat Beshalah might not be a segulah for parnasa, but R. Mendel's exhortation to be content with our lot.

In his review of Michael Hattin’s commentaries on the books of Joshua and Judges, Francis Nataf explores how greater collaboration between creative Tanakh teachers could help reduce the number of overly speculative readings.

What inspired Azariah de Rossi to take a work that cut against the grain of rabbinic views of the Septuagint and make it accessible to his Hebrew-reading fellow Jews?

David Fried clarifies the concept of imitating God through Rashi's oft-neglected reading of “It is not good for man to be alone”

Miriam Gedwiser explains how the Rabbis of the Talmud put the law of yefat to'ar in conversation with the David narrative, and what this teaches us about how we should approach passages of this nature.

Seth Farber explores the Rav's 1932 in local Boston historical context.

Tzvi Sinensky responds to Herzl Hefter's Akeida essay.

Moshe Kurtz regales us with his love of science fiction & fantasy, suggesting that the genre’s literature, movies, and games can teach Torah lessons in ethics and morality, but cautioning that Torah u-Madda ought not to become Torah u-Movies.