Talmud and Halakhah

Moshe Kurtz looks as discomfort as a factor in Halakha

Alan Jotkowitz shares insights into Rambam’s Hilkhot Teshuvah

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.

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 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.”

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.

Steven Gotlib reviews Eugene Korn’s To Be a Holy People: Jewish Tradition and Ethical Values, a book which asks hard questions about whether Halakhah can integrate with the demands of contemporary ethics.

What do the wisdom of traditional Jewish texts and the recent findings of modern psychology have in common? Marc Eichenbaum finds commonalities in both to promote a character-driven approach to Jewish education.

How successful is the new book, Reclaiming Dignity: A Guide to Tzniut for Men and Women, at setting forth a new Torah-based vision for modesty? Laurie Novick offers a careful review, carefully considering both the personal essays and halakhic/hashkafic analyses set forward in this important work.

Moshe Kurtz explores several halakhic questions concerning the recitation of kaddish for the deceased, all of which point to a larger discussion about how one can confer merit on someone else.