Talmud and Halakhah

Yonah Lavery-Yisraeli offers a novel interpretation of the Talmudic sugya of miun that offers profound insight into how the Rabbis dealt with the problem of child sexual abuse.

Are today's rabbis allowed to initiate new prohibitions? Aryeh Klapper analyzes a responsum on the issue of halakhic innovation regarding new technologies.

In his latest for the Lehrhaus, Dan Ornstein creatively imagines the story of the Talmudic sage Rabbi Yohanan through his teachings on the Book of Job. The short story is followed by a reflection on the methodology and power of "contemporary midrash."

In our saturated environment, can any contemporary work on hilkhot Shabbat break new ground? Ezra Schwartz explains that Rav Rimon's newest work does precisely this.

Reading R. Eliezer b. Hyrcanus and Shammai through an autistic lens, Liz Shayne explores how uncompromising, righteous anger can find a place in the beit midrash.

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.

R. Shimshon Nadel explores the connection between the Hasmonean dynasty and the modern-day State of Israel.

AJ Berkovitz traces the reception history of a Midrash Tehillim that seems to equate the reading of Psalms with Torah study, offering a fascinating case study of how tradition evolves.

Yaakov Jaffe traces the origins and evolution of the custom to shake the lulav in different directions.

  Isaac (Amichai) Roszler Rabbi Joseph Hirsch Dünner (1833-1911), also known as Ritzad, was one of the first modern academic scholars of the Bavli, the Babylonian...