Holidays Reimagined: From Pesah To Purim To Post-Hurban Pesah
Shimon Laufer examines how Rabbinic understanding of the holiday of Passover influenced the holiday of Purim, and how one of the oldest manuscripts of the Mishnah hints that the converse may be true as well.
Character And Covenant
Ben Frogel reviews a new volume that introduces thirty-five different Jewish approaches to virtue ethics and attempts to link them into one continuous tradition.
An Academic-Hasidic Love of Torah
Yakov Z. Mayer reflects on the life of a remarkable Hasidic academic.
Is Silence Complicity?: An Analysis of Shtikah Ke-Hoda’ah from Classic Halakhah to Current Events
Moshe Kurtz explores the different meanings of silence in Halakhah in light of recent political events
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
Letters to the Editor: A Rejoinder to the Review by Martin Lockshin
In this letter to the editor, David E.S. Stein, the project manager and revising translator of the JPS TANAKH: Gender-Sensitive Edition, responds to the review by Martin Lockshin.
Rav Hayyim and the Love of Lernen
In 1927, Rabbi Boruch Ber Leibowitz wrote a poem, an ode to Rabbi Hayyim Soloveitchik of Brisk. Nati Helfgot provides the background and a translation.
Summer Chaplaincy as Modern Priesthood; a Theological Reflection
Eliyahu Freedman compares hospital chaplains to the Kohanim.
Letter to the Editor: Response to Leead Staller on Euthanasia
Can Halakhah really countenance euthanasia? Alan Jotkowitz responds to Leead Staller
In God’s Country: The “Zionism” of Rashi’s First Comment
Elli Fischer reads one of Rashi's most famous comments against the grain.