Scholarship

Building on ideas from Jacques Lacan and Rabbeinu Bahya ibn Pakuda, Zach Truboff offers an innovative psychological reading of the Cain and Abel story.

Baruch Sterman describes how an encounter with a missionary led him to a greater understanding of Ramban's commentary on this week's Parshah.

At the height of the cholera epidemic in 1831, Hatam Sofer delivered a timely sermon on a perplexing midrash to Parshat Ki Tavo. The take-home, suggests Elli Fischer, is all-too familiar in the COVID era.

Natalie Zemon Davis, a Jewish historian known for shining a light on the lives of marginalized people in the early modern period, passed away in October. Ronnie Perelis commemorates Dr. Zemon Davis by reflecting on the experience of teaching her revolutionary work to his students at Stern College for Women.

Rena Kosowsky compares the treatment of sexual assault in the Bible and the Talmud, and explores the implications of what that means for how we should address it today.

Rami Reiner examines how our understanding of a Talmudic passage could change if we allow for the possibility of it being a comedy.

Batya Hefter explores a Hasidic understanding of “Sinai consciousness” and proposes a way to re-experience it on Shavuot.

Infertility figures as a tragic theme not only on Rosh Hashanah but also in biblical narrative and modern life. This morning, Yael Leibowitz writes lyrically on The Birthplace of Infertility.

Yosef Lindell tracks the Staff of Moses throughout its amazing "life".

Historian Jonathan Sarna places a recent decision by an Orthodox synagogue to modify the "prayer for the government" into sharp historical focus.