Talmud and Halakhah

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.

Lawrence Kaplan responds to AJ Berkovitz’s article on the many conflicting interpretations of a passage in Midrash Tehillim, highlighting two different approaches advanced by Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik.

Shlomo Zuckier offers a close literary reading of the fascinating Ketia bar Shalom narrative on Avodah Zarah 10b!

In honor of yesterday's Daf Yomi Siyum on Masekhet Eiruvin, Yaakov Jaffe describes how online maps and other technological tools have better enabled communities such as Boston/Cambridge to measure their tehum shabbat.

Are today's rabbis allowed to initiate new prohibitions? Aryeh Klapper analyzes a responsum on the issue of halakhic innovation regarding new technologies.

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

Gila Bieler-Hoch reviews Hilkhot Nashim, published by JOFA and Maggid Books.

Rebecca Cypess considers the life and work of the Italian Jewish Renaissance composer Salamone Rossi, his rabbinic supporter Leon Modena, and the controversies over 17th century polyphonic music in the synagogue.

Two letters to the editor provide alternative perspectives on the question of what Jewish law wants American abortion law to be.

In tribute to his son's hanahat tefilin and Bar Mitzvah, Lehrhaus Consulting Editor Jeffrey Saks explores a little-known, mysterious practice that appears in Agnon's short story Two Pairs.