Voices from Outside the Cave: Women and the Story of Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai
Kate Rozansky explores the life of Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai through the prism of the women in his life.
Gilgamesh and the Rabbis: Knowledge and its Price from Uruk to the Beit Midrash
What do Adam, Enkidu, and Reish Lakish all have in common? Eli Putterman explores.
Still We Rejoice: How Halakhah Guides Emotional Complexity
In the wake of recent painful times for the Jewish people, Batsheva Leah Weinstein discusses the ways halakha guides emotion through pain and joy.
Purim, Poverty, And Propriety—Three Talmudic Stories
Dan Ornstein explains how three Talmudic stories about mishloah manot and matanot le-evyonim on Purim can sensitize us to how to relate to the recipients of these gifts.
Curriculum, Crisis, and Change: Towards a Talmud Curriculum Grounded in Educational Theory
David Stein with a fresh look at the methods and priorities of teaching Talmud in Modern Orthodox day schools.
The Utility of Ambiguity
Dina Brawer explores "certainty" and "doubt" in rabbinic tradition.
The Fourth Chapter of Avot as an extended reflection on Epicurean Philosophy
In the spirit of Hanukkah, Yaakov Jaffe offers an intriguing thesis tying together a series of Mishnayot in the fourth chapter of Pirkei Avot: they are all responding to various aspects of Epicurean philosophy.
Nine Measures
Tehila Wenger offers a short story on loss, eternity, and olive trees .
Kamtza and Bar Kamtza in the Age of Cancel Culture
The Talmudic story of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza is often used to highlight the destructive consequences of baseless hatred. In an intriguing reading, David Hellman suggests that the hatred that motivated the tale’s participants is more complex than meets the eye.
The Nazir and the Priest
Yoni Nouriel examines an episode in the Talmud where Shimon Ha-Tzadik describes his encounter with an impure Nazir.
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