Talmud and Halakhah

Yaakov Taubes examines three hypothetical “What if?” books and what they can teach us about history, science, and halakhah.

Howard Apfel reviews Sacred Training: A Halakhic Guidebook for Medical Students and Residents.

Max Hollander analyzes the Talmudic narrative of Pardes and the four rabbis who entered it.

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.

May one opt to participate in a potentially dangerous vaccine trial? This theoretical halakhic question has suddenly become all-too-urgent. Sharon Galper Grossman and Shamai Grossman explore.

R. Shimshon Nadel explores the connection between the Hasmonean dynasty and the modern-day State of Israel.

Jonathcan Muskat explores the different ways Rabbi Soloveitchik communicated about Mehitzah.

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.

The exhaustive Talmud commentary of Provencal scholar Menachem ben Shlomo Ha-Meiri was largely disregarded by Jewish scholars for centuries. Its revived popularity in the twentieth century presents a puzzle, then, for which multiple explanations have been offered. Michael Broyde considers the approaches advanced by his teacher Dr. Haym Soloveitchik and by others, before proposing his own explanation, focusing on Meiri's unique level of access to and use of Yerushalmi texts.

Responding to yesterday’s article by Moshe Kurtz, Lehrhaus editor Tzvi Sinensky presents an alternative read of the Mitzvah of lo yilbash.