Talmud and Halakhah

Moshe Kurtz looks as discomfort as a factor in Halakha

Ari Elias-Bachrach explores the science behind lab-produced meat and cheese and the possibility of a realistic kosher cheeseburger.

Shira Hecht-Koller Earlier this year, Apple released the iPhone X. When the first iPhone was released in 2007, I was completing my second year of...

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

Yosef Lindell examines how Yehudah ha-Levi's kinnah about the bubbling blood of Zechariah modifies the story found in Talmudic sources and thus tackles the question of theodicy.

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.

Chaim Trachtman explores the relationship between moral instincts and rational thinking in Rabbinic Psychology.

How did the Talmud look at plagues? Miriam Reisler offers a close reading of a key halakhic and narrative section of Bava Kama.

In its opening verses, Parshat Shoftim describes a judicial system that enshrines pursuing Tzedek, or justice, as a core value. Benjamin Barer unpacks a Gemara in Sanhedrin that provides three distinct conceptions of the obligation to pursue justice, suggesting how we might build a more sacred society.

Why have stories of Jewish masquerade captured audiences since ancient times? In her latest, Malka Z. Simkovich explores the hidden meaning behind dressing up, from the Second Temple to '90s cinema.