Talmud and Halakhah

Gabriel Greenberg looks at a Talmudic passage on what to do when you don’t know which day is Shabbat and the insights it provides for our current situation.

In his latest for the Lehrhaus, Dan Ornstein creatively imagines the story of the Talmudic sage Rabbi Yohanan through his teachings on the Book of Job. The short story is followed by a reflection on the methodology and power of "contemporary midrash."

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

The secular calendar has its leap day on Feb. 29. On the Jewish calendar, our leap day is 30 Adar I, since Adar in a non-leap year always has 29 days. Yaakov Taubes explores all of the Halakhot pertaining to this unique day.

Yaakov Jaffe explains how Biblical grammar and parables come together in Amos to teach us about women's Talmud Torah.

Rav Ronen Neuwirth suggests that the strictures of social distancing enable us to reduce this year's Lag BaOmer bonfires - which he sees as a very good thing.

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.

Two readers respond to Michael Broyde's recent article on time-bound commandments. Leah Sarna critiques Broyde's omission of female scholarship, and Avi Siegal argues that Broyde's unifying theory skews the data.

Pressed for time, people often skip reciting the korbanot section of the morning prayers. With the High Holidays approaching, Judah Kerbel makes the case that the korbanot are far more central and halakhically significant to our prayers than we often realize.

Sharon Galper Grossman and Shamai A. Grossman, leading doctors writing from quarantine, explain why even the Noda be-Yehuda, who requires that the sick person be before us, would agree that a public health crisis is subject to the leniencies of pikuah nefesh.