Talmudic Readings

What can the Talmud teach us about living through a pandemic? Avi Strausberg argues that it teaches us quite a bit about strengthening acts of kindness and solidarity in our communities.

The classification of certain people as "athenes" receives wide expression in Talmudic stories and even practical halakhic application. Shayna Herszage-Feldan considers the varieties of asthenes descriptions in Talmudic texts, proposing that the category encompasses the condition that is today diagnosed as contamination-focused obsessive compulsive disorder.

Tehila Wenger offers a short story on loss, eternity, and olive trees .

How can repeated tropes in rabbinic aggada help us to understand the rabbis' values--and how they related to Tanakh? Moshe Isaacson explores a variety of examples, suggesting that the question has only begun to be examined.

Yonah Lavery-Yisraeli explores the relationship between the Talmudic term of "asmakhta" and the way we view our past, present, and future.

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.

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

Levi Morrow explores how the Rabbis use creative exegesis to save the world from drowning in a flood