Revisiting Mendelssohn’s Living Script

Tzvi Sinensky responds to Lawrence Kaplan and continues the discussion on Mendelssohn and Jewish law.
Jewish Law

What is Jewish Law? Uncovering a Debate between the Tur and the Ran

Lehrhaus Editor Shlomo Zuckier examines two divergent understandings of Jewish law.
Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein

Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein and Academic Talmud Study

Rami Reiner breaks new ground, analyzing Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein's view of academic Jewish studies.

She-Hehiyanu: An Endangered Blessing Species

It is customary to celebrate Tu Bi-Shevat by eating fruits and reciting the She-Hehiyanu blessing on them. This custom, however, has proved challenging in recent years as advances in technology have made it difficult to find new fruit—as defined by halakhah—to say the She-Hehiyanu

The Brachos Bee and Becoming American Orthodox Jews

The Brachos Bee, Zev Eleff argues, shows how Orthodox Jews Americanize and form their own particular religious subculture.

Cutting a Peace: The Story of Ketiah bar Shalom

Shlomo Zuckier offers a close literary reading of the fascinating Ketia bar Shalom narrative on Avodah Zarah 10b!

Why Do We Deserve God’s Favor?

Ezra Sivan probes the Sabbath and the Torah's call to love God.
Mendelssohn

Moses Mendelssohn and the Mimetic Society: Then and Now

Lawrence Kaplan makes a case for Mendelssohn's vision for our time.
eliezer Berkovits

An Old Jew and His Grandchildren

In the 1950s, Eliezer Berkovits reflects on Judaism, tradition and how generations connect with one another.

Azariah de Rossi’s Fascination with the Septuagint

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?