Scholarship

Yisroel Ben-Porat analyzes a Midrash offering non-misogynistic takes on the original sin.

Jeffrey Saks concludes The Lehrhaus series, mapping out the intellectual biography of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik

In this thought-provoking piece, Aharon Frazer traces the approach to power and privilege in the Torah from Genesis through Deuteronomy, and offers a framework for the ethical use of power in our own times.

Avraham’s challenge to God’s planned destruction of Sodom raises the fundamental ethical problem of collective punishment. The resolution of this challenge, Sruli Fruchter explains, enables Avraham to realize God’s highest ideals and to confront the conflict between compassion for oppressors and consideration for their victims.

In her winning Ateret Zvi essay, Leah Sarna explores two simultaneously true stories about pregnancy: it is at once a beautiful, incredible miracle, and also a demanding journey, both physically and mentally, that often feels more like a catastrophe. Studying the Torah's accounts of pregnancy in Tazria and Rivkah's life, Sarna offers a moving analysis of what it means to hear, tell, and live these stories.

A poem on parshat Korach by Zohar Atkins

Ezra Sivan follows up last year's piece about how the Exodus leveled social boundaries with an article about what the Pesah story teaches us about social distancing today.

What motivated the first Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Israel, Rav Herzog, to work tirelessly on the seemingly quixotic project of running the modern State of Israel on the basis of Halakhah? Reviewing Alexandar Kaye's new book on the subject, Rabbi Shalom Carmy explains.

This past Shabbat, Rivkah took center stage, making a dramatic decision that altered the course of her descendants’ histories. Sruli Fruchter examines the angst that preceded Rivkah’s fateful actions.

Sruli Fruchter examines the story not often told about Noah—the trauma inflicted by immense responsibility amidst immense destruction.