Talmud and Halakhah

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.

The epikorus and the min apparently represent two different kinds of heretic in traditional Jewish literature. Elisha Price traces the evolving meaning of each term in Hazal and medieval writings, clarifying the differences between the major genres of Jewish heresy and helping illuminate for us why they matter.

Aryeh Dienstag and Penina Dienstag respond to the articles by Sharon Galper-Grossman, Shamai Grossman, and Alan Jotkowitz regarding vaccine allocation.

In honor of Shavuot 5784, Dalia Wolfson presents five new bilingual poems that explore the themes of the third perek of Mishnah Bikkurim and contemplate their possible inversion.

In the wake of recent painful times for the Jewish people, Batsheva Leah Weinstein discusses the ways halakha guides emotion through pain and joy.

The propriety of celebrating the downfall of enemies presents a complex web of questions and seemingly contradictory Jewish texts. Michael Kurin makes sense of this subject and proposes a framework for applying it to matters of Israeli public policy.

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

  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...

Shimi Kaufman analyzes Rav Shimon Shkop's perspectives of halakha and human experience, through the lens of financial law.

Jon Kelsen uncovers a deeper rabbinic meaning to the blood needed to "passover" the Israelites.