Talmud and Halakhah

Tehila Wenger offers a short story on loss, eternity, and olive trees .

Can Halakhah really countenance euthanasia? Alan Jotkowitz responds to Leead Staller

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.

In these difficult times for Israel, Aharon Frazer of Alon Shvut is thinking about the fundamental sanctity of human life and the long game. Can war and weapons really take us toward the messianic age?

It is customary to celebrate Tu Bi-Shevat by eating fruits and reciting the She-Hehiyanu blessing on them. This custom, however, has proved challenging in recent years as advances in technology have made it difficult to find new fruit—as defined by halakhah—to say the She-Hehiyanu

With a novel reading of Josephus and Gittin, Shana Schwartz proposes that the tragedy of the second hurban and the mystery of subsequent Jewish survival may be understood by reference to the physiological knowledge available in classical antiquity.

In 1927, Rabbi Boruch Ber Leibowitz wrote a poem, an ode to Rabbi Hayyim Soloveitchik of Brisk. Nati Helfgot provides the background and a translation.

Shayna Goldberg contributes to the Lehrhaus Symposium on the recent OU statement regarding female clergy.

In a piece that resonates today, Tzvi Sinensky examines what made the Jews' salvation from the plague of the firstborns so miraculous.

With Hoshanah Rabbah today and the theme of repentance in mind, Jack Cohen explores the role that outsiders play in one's teshuva process through an enigmatic midrash instructing one to return a person to themselves.