Scholarship

Moshe Koppel Reviews Chaim Saiman's Halakhah: The Rabbinic Idea of Law.

Natan Levin examines King David’s character through a close reading of his narratives in the Book of Samuel.

What do Adam, Enkidu, and Reish Lakish all have in common? Eli Putterman explores.

After six months suspended between quarantine, isolation, and uncertainty, it’s natural to want to run away from home, especially as Yom Kippur looms and we realize it’s time for a change. But, as Matthew Nitzanim explains, this understandable reaction would miss the point of Teshuvah: everything we need to work on is right here, wherever it is we find ourselves.

Zev Eleff explores how the Jewish family anchored Rabbi Norman Lamm's sermons and thought during the destabilizing 1960s.

Does the Torah support a universalist or ethnonationalist political orientation? In this timely essay, Ezra Zuckerman Sivan explores the meaning behind key stories in Genesis through the framework of the Aleinu prayer.

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.

Rav Ronen Neuwirth suggests that the strictures of social distancing enable us to reduce this year's Lag BaOmer bonfires - which he sees as a very good thing.

Lehrhaus Editor Shlomo Zuckier examines two divergent understandings of Jewish law.

On this flag day, Moshe Kurtz surveys the arguments for and against displaying national flags in synagogues.