Talmud and Halakhah

David Polsky meticulously analyzes Halakhic sources on the use of force by officers of the law.

Two letters to the editor provide alternative perspectives on the question of what Jewish law wants American abortion law to be.

Yaakov Jaffe and Menachem Butler explore the Halakhot of when fasting is proper and when it’s not.

In a rare piece of Lehrhaus Purim Torah, Mark Glass explores—with surprising halakhic rigor—whether the Pokémon named Bulbasaur’s use of a Solar Beam attack would constitute cooking on Shabbat.

Tzvi Sinensky makes a case to consider Rabbi Norman Lamm as pathbreaking Talmud innovator.

Last year, Nathan B. Oman, a Latter-day Saint and law professor, bought hametz from the members of Chaim Saiman’s synagogue before Passover. This is his story—a profound meditation on the nature of religious law and legal fiction — with an introduction by Chaim Saiman.

Marc B. Shapiro reviews a new edited volume by Yoram Hazony, Gil Student, and Alex Sztuden that offers a traditional defense of revelation in light of modern biblical criticism.

Sharon Galper Grossman and Shamai Grossman examine Halakhic sources regarding whether physicians and other healthcare workers have a greater requirement to receive the COVID-19 vaccine than the rest of the population.

Jeffrey Fox examines whether watching football is problematic from a Torah point of view.

Yaakov Taubes explores the background to Maimonides’s explanation for how the Mishnah is ordered.