Scholarship

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

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.

Yoni Nouriel examines an episode in the Talmud where Shimon Ha-Tzadik describes his encounter with an impure Nazir.

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.

Shmuel Winiarz contributes to the Lehrhaus Symposium on the recent OU statement regarding female clergy.

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.

Yaakov Jaffe provides an ideological argument against including ideology in our Chumashim.

Ezra Zuckerman Sivan examines the significance of the six barleys that Boaz gives Ruth in light of the story of Rachel, Leah, and the duda'im.

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

Sholom Eisenstat presents a passage of the Zohar about the inverted nuns in Parashat Beha'alotekha to explore the interplay between design and interpretation of the Torah.