Meta-Reflections

The new book Reclaiming Dignity is taking the Anglo Jewish world by storm. Why? Emmanuel Bloch, who wrote his dissertation on the subject of tzeniut, argues that the work capitalizes on and extends a new, revolutionary halakhic and conceptual framework for tzeniut that has emerged only in recent years - one that offers a lens to the “soul of contemporary Jewish Orthodoxy.”

Steven Gotlib reviews Eugene Korn’s To Be a Holy People: Jewish Tradition and Ethical Values, a book which asks hard questions about whether Halakhah can integrate with the demands of contemporary ethics.

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

Jonah Mac Gelfand explores the neo-Hasidic theology of obligation to do mitzvot that emerges from the fascinating writings of Rabbi Arthur Green.

In commemoration of the upcoming Sheloshim of Rav Moshe Kahn, Mindy Schwartz Zolty shares a Hesped of her teacher in which she discusses his derekh ha-limmud and his derekh as a melamed.

With lyrical prose, Natan Oliff teaches us how to view prayer as a virtue and let it enter every aspect of our lives, making us into prayerful people.

Judah Kerbel explores how differing approaches to listening to music during Sefirat ha-Omer balance the appropriate role for subjectivity in halakhic decision-making.

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.

Yisroel Ben-Porat offers historical, hashkafic, and personal reflections on what’s often called the “Judeo-Christian” tradition and whether a Torah u-Madda outlook can embrace the study of Christianity.

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.