Talmud and Halakhah

Jon Kelsen uncovers a deeper rabbinic meaning to the blood needed to "passover" the Israelites.

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.

The Talmud speaks of a mysterious passage on Bilam authored by Moses. What is it?

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

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

Tzvi Sinensky offers a fresh look at one of Rabbinic Judaism's most important mottos.

With the High Holidays approaching, a time iconic for its songful liturgy, Moshe Kurtz scrutinizes the practice of cantors repeating words during davening.

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

Jeffrey Burghauser's three poems draw on the biblical and rabbinic imagination.

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.