Scholarship

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.

Lazarre Simckes analyses Joseph’s dreams through the lens of trauma psychology.

Ari Lamm writes in tribute to the late Louis Feldman, examining his scholarship in light of personal experience.

  Hershey H. Friedman & Linda Weiser Friedman Some scholars, such as Alfred North Whitehead, have argued that the Hebrew Bible lacks humor. However, a counter-argument...

Ilan Fuchs reviews Naomi Seidman’s book Sarah Schenirer and the Bais Yaakov Movement.

This essay by Aaron Zeitlin—originally published in Yiddish in 1967 and translated here into English by Daniel Kraft—explores Aaron’s father Hillel Zeitlin’s approach to anti-semitism by way of the Book of Jonah.

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

Mois Navon explores what makes Hanukkah so special.

Francis Nataf argues that the Jewish ethics of mutual aid force us to re-examine our obligations to non-Jews within and outside of our communities.

Judah Kerbel discusses why we say an abbreviated Hallel on the last six days of Pesah and contemplates what that says about the war in Israel; self-defense is a must, as is gratitude toward God, but we also hold space for the losses on the other side.