Talmud and Halakhah

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.

Last year, Nathan B. Oman, a Latter-day Saint and law professor, bought hametz from the members of Chaim Saiman’s synagogue before Passover. This is his story—a profound meditation on the nature of religious law and legal fiction — with an introduction by Chaim Saiman.

Moshe Kurtz explores the different meanings of silence in Halakhah in light of recent political events

In a rare piece of Lehrhaus Purim Torah, Mark Glass explores—with surprising halakhic rigor—whether the Pokémon named Bulbasaur’s use of a Solar Beam attack would constitute cooking on Shabbat.

Alex Ozar explores wartime law in the Rambam.

The secular calendar has its leap day on Feb. 29. On the Jewish calendar, our leap day is 30 Adar I, since Adar in a non-leap year always has 29 days. Yaakov Taubes explores all of the Halakhot pertaining to this unique day.

In this personal reflection, Phil Lieberman addresses the unique pain that accompanies the loss of an abusive parent and considers the uneasy coherence of this pain with Jewish traditions of mourning.

In these difficult times for Israel, Aharon Frazer of Alon Shvut is thinking about the fundamental sanctity of human life and the long game. Can war and weapons really take us toward the messianic age?

A growing list of dati le’umi leaders and thinkers frame war as a desirable state and even an opportunity for spiritual elevation. Religious Israeli activist Ariel Shwartz traces this trend with alarm and argues that it contradicts deep-rooted Torah values. Translated by Mordechai Blau.

In their latest for the Lehrhaus, Aryeh and Penina Dienstag study Talmudic narratives that balance the tension between sexual asceticism and pleasure through an overlooked literary motif: angels.