Talmud and Halakhah

What does the makeup of the altar drainage pipes tell us about the nature of holiness? Shlomo Zuckier explores!

William Gewirtz continues to offer his thoughts on the meaning of bein ha-shemashot.

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

Noah Gradofsky explores sources about a pregnant Sotah and their relevance for Jewish abortion ethics.

Was the Mishnah intended to serve as a legal text? This traditional assumption, which forms a central premise of the halakhic process, has been challenged by more recent scholarship. Dovid Campbell engages with this scholarship and performs his own close reading of some of the Mishnah's more enigmatic digressions to propose his conception of the Mishnah as a corpus of "found philosophy."

The CDC and FDA have recently endorsed booster shots for the Covid vaccine. But there are those who argue that those doses should be allocated to third world countries instead. Sharon Galper Grossman and Shamai Grossman weigh in about what Halakhah has to say about the issue.

The Talmud speaks of a mysterious passage on Bilam authored by Moses. What is it?

Yosef Lindell examines how Yehudah ha-Levi's kinnah about the bubbling blood of Zechariah modifies the story found in Talmudic sources and thus tackles the question of theodicy.

A growing list of dati le’umi leaders and thinkers frame war as a desirable state and even an opportunity for spiritual elevation. Religious Israeli activist Ariel Shwartz traces this trend with alarm and argues that it contradicts deep-rooted Torah values. Translated by Mordechai Blau.

Judah Kerbel explores how differing approaches to listening to music during Sefirat ha-Omer balance the appropriate role for subjectivity in halakhic decision-making.