Talmud and Halakhah

As part of his Legal Fictions creative project, Dovid Campbell reimagines the content of Mishna Yevamot 16:6 in an evocative narrative.

We only rarely have the opportunity to compare and analyze instances where a rabbi or scholar changed his interpretation over time, yet R. Yom Tov Lipman Heller published his Mishnah commentary, Tosafot Yom Tov, twice in his lifetime. Yaakov Jaffe examines the evolution of R. Heller's interpretation of the term “the Mouth of the Earth” in Pirkei Avot.

As part of his Legal Fictions creative project, Dovid Campbell reimagines the content of Mishna Shekalim 6:2 in an evocative narrative of disability and Temple service.

I. Introduction: The Puzzle of Vayikra 17 The mitzvah of kisuy ha-dam, the commandment to cover the blood of a slaughtered bird or wild animal,...

Yonathan Reches explores the sources related to a bridge traversing over and Eruv.

Harvard Professor Jon Levenson weighs in on what stops the floodwaters: rabbinic creativity or the Temple!

What sort of powers did Hazal have in the first century? Ari Lamm wonders.

A response to Yosef Bronstein's study on Halakhah's engagement with societal norms

In response to Tzvi Sinensky's earlier essay, Andrew Bennett presents Jewish legal scholar Robert Cover's and noted antisemite Carl Schmitt's thoughts on elu ve-elu.

Jeffrey Burghauser's three poems draw on the biblical and rabbinic imagination.