Talmudic Readings

Yisroel Ben-Porat offers historical, hashkafic, and personal reflections on what’s often called the “Judeo-Christian” tradition and whether a Torah u-Madda outlook can embrace the study of Christianity.

Miriam Gedwiser Sometimes, returning to a familiar text uncovers something new. In this essay, I hope to reexamine the story of the Oven of Akhnai...

Atara Cohen considers the theological implications of the Talmud’s surprising majority opinion as to how the Messiah will come.

In this essay, written in honor of Yom Yerushalayim, Bezalel Naor explores the differing visions for the ideal state held by Plato and the Rabbis, Maimonides and Rabbi Nahman of Breslov.

Marc Michael Epstein explores the nature of animal motifs in medieval Jewish manuscripts.

Shlomo Zuckier explores the nature of Yom Kippur and its relationship to atonement.

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.

Yehoshua Pfeffer on self-abnegating vs. life-affirming teshuva.

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.

Yitzchak Blau reviews Jeffrey Rubenstein’s The Land of Truth, Talmud Tales, Timeless Teachings.