The Tefillin Strap Mark: In Search of an Obscure Minhag
In tribute to his son's hanahat tefilin and Bar Mitzvah, Lehrhaus Consulting Editor Jeffrey Saks explores a little-known, mysterious practice that appears in Agnon's short story Two Pairs.
From Lawlessness to Respectability: A Response to Eli Putterman
Lawrence Kaplan responds to Eli Putterman's essay on Reish Laqish and sexuality.
Hippocratic Healthcare and Christian Absolutism: Can Halakhah Allow for Compassionate Euthanasia?
Leead Staller argues for a more nuanced approach to euthanasia in Halakha.
Bathtub Mikvaot and The Curious History of a Halakhic Libel
Aryeh Klapper explores the Mikvah leniencies of Rabbi David Miller and what led one of his opponents to accuse him of making an obvious grammar mistake.
Revival of the Forgotten Talmud
Sefaria has recently published a new bilingual digital edition of Talmud Yerushalmi. Taking stock of this development, Zachary Rothblatt offers an erudite synthesis of the history of Yerushalmi.
Social Distancing in the Rabbinic Tradition
Jeremy Brown discusses some remarkable Talmudic and historical precedents for social distancing during pandemics.
Does Peri Etz Hadar Mean Etrog?
David Moster explores the meaning of Peri Etz Hadar.
Reclaiming Dignity Revealed
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.”
Wanted: Precision, Nuance, and Avodat Hashem
Jeffrey Woolf contributes to the Lehrhaus Symposium on the recent OU statement regarding female clergy.
A More Holistic Halakhic Approach to Vaccine Inequity
Alan Jotkowitz disagrees with Sharon Galper Grossman’s and Shamai Grossman’s halakhic argument that wealthy nations should provide booster shots to their own populations before contributing doses to poorer countries.