Talmud and Halakhah

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.

Yonah Lavery-Yisraeli explores the relationship between the Talmudic term of "asmakhta" and the way we view our past, present, and future.

Rami Reiner breaks new ground, analyzing Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein's view of academic Jewish studies.

Yonah Lavery-Yisraeli offers a careful examination of an enigmatic discussion in the Shulhan Arukh’s laws on neighborly relations. She demonstrates how “radical presence” and attention to sensory details is an essential strategy for halakhic decision-making.

What can the Talmud teach us about living through a pandemic? Avi Strausberg argues that it teaches us quite a bit about strengthening acts of kindness and solidarity in our communities.

William Gerwitz explains the scientific knowledge needed to fully understand the Jewish calendar.

Rabbi Daniel Reifman reviews Christine Hayes' Whats Divine about Divine Law?

Elli Fischer examines the interplay between Talmudic Halakhah and Aggadah.

Josh Yuter looks at the ways that Halakha takes into consideration, and responds to, human feelings.

The new book Reclaiming Dignity is taking the Anglo Jewish world by storm. Why? Emmanuel Bloch, who wrote his dissertation on the subject of tzeniut, argues that the work capitalizes on and extends a new, revolutionary halakhic and conceptual framework for tzeniut that has emerged only in recent years - one that offers a lens to the “soul of contemporary Jewish Orthodoxy.”