Tanakh

The worldview and thought process of Haman bear an uncanny resemblance to those of contemporary antisemitic movements. Drawing on the work of French psychoanalyst Jacque Lacan, Zach Truboff explores the fantasy at the heart of Haman's rage, takes note of its contemporary echoes, and proposes that Jews must beware of stumbling into our own version of this fantasy. This essay was written before the war with Iran. That Khamenei, who embodied the antisemitic fantasy as fully as any figure in our lifetime, was eliminated on the eve of Purim requires no commentary beyond what the Megillah itself provides.

How was the original Seder experienced, and how do we constitute a Jewish collective? Joel Levy and Leon Wiener-Dow argue that the collective must begin with the independent-minded individual.

Rena Kosowsky compares the treatment of sexual assault in the Bible and the Talmud, and explores the implications of what that means for how we should address it today.

The stories of Hagar and Ishmael's banishment and subsequent rescue by the angel and that of a cast-out baby Moses on the Nile rescued by Pharaoh's daughter are seemingly dissimilar, but this close reading by David Curwin argues that their strong parallels have a lesson to teach about the importance of being active and not succumbing to passivity.

Whose idea was Sinai? A midrash contends that Sinai was first conceived by Jethro. Ezra Zuckerman Sivan supports this Midrash from the Torah's text, and explains why Jethro was the appropriate vehicle for providing the rationale of Sinai.

Aryeh Klapper recreating a patriarchal voice.

What inspired Azariah de Rossi to take a work that cut against the grain of rabbinic views of the Septuagint and make it accessible to his Hebrew-reading fellow Jews?

Joshua Berman, a leading Tanakh scholar, has written a compelling book that addresses head-on many of the challenges posed by biblical criticism. Michael Harris explains.

Ben Greenfield explains that the attributes commonly associated with our forefathers are not attributes at which they excelled, but rather attributes with which they struggled.

In honor of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks’s 70th birthday, Ari Lamm explores his legacy as a biblical commentator.