Scholarship

In unpacking the meaning of a tricky verse from Eikhah that we say as part of the Shofar service on Rosh Hashanah, Mitchell First introduces us to the literary principle called hendiadys, which can help us understand various phrases throughout Tanakh.

AJ Berkovitz traces the reception history of a Midrash Tehillim that seems to equate the reading of Psalms with Torah study, offering a fascinating case study of how tradition evolves.

Zev Eleff offers a rejoinder and some reflections on "What if Rav Aharon Had Stayed?"

Nachum Krasnopolsky explains Rashbam's interpretation of the splitting of the sea as an educational experience.

Beth Kissileff explains how Moses' complaint about not being the Israelite's nursemaid shows how he is unfit for leadership.

On Yom Ha'atzmaut, Zach Truboff reflects on Rav Shagar's insistence that the Israeli present must be rooted in the past, and explores the redemptive power of Torah as an answer for modernity.

Ayelet Wenger weaves together the personal, historical and exegetical in advance of reading Sefer Shemot.

Steven Gotlib reviews Eugene Korn’s To Be a Holy People: Jewish Tradition and Ethical Values, a book which asks hard questions about whether Halakhah can integrate with the demands of contemporary ethics.

Rami Reiner examines how our understanding of a Talmudic passage could change if we allow for the possibility of it being a comedy.

There’s a miniature kaf at the beginning of the parashah. As Gabriel Slamovits explains, what the diminished letter says about how Abraham mourned for Sarah fits well with a prominent teaching of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, zt”l.