Meta-Reflections

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.

Sefaria has recently published a new bilingual digital edition of Talmud Yerushalmi. Taking stock of this development, Zachary Rothblatt offers an erudite synthesis of the history of Yerushalmi.

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

Elinatan Kupferberg argues that the boundaries between Torah and Madda have blurred and evolved throughout Jewish intellectual history. This erudite analysis upends our assumptions about Torah u-Madda and breathtakingly reimagines its past, present, and future.

Yaakov Taubes explores the background to Maimonides’s explanation for how the Mishnah is ordered.

Shlomo Zuckier explores some surprising connections between the Talmud and the field of behavioral economics.

Josh Yuter looks at the ways that Halakha takes into consideration, and responds to, human feelings.

Ari Lamm explores a recent instance of talmudic censorship, as well as its implications for thinking about Jewish-Christian relations and American society at large.

Rabbi Ezra Schwartz reviews Nishmat HaBayit, a responsa collection by the Yoatzot Halacha of Nishmat

Jonathan Ziring explores the innovative nature of different Halakhic rulings permitting violating Shabbat to save non-Jewish lives.