Humash

At the height of the cholera epidemic in 1831, Hatam Sofer delivered a timely sermon on a perplexing midrash to Parshat Ki Tavo. The take-home, suggests Elli Fischer, is all-too familiar in the COVID era.

Tammy Jacobowitz reviews David Forman's latest book, a companion to Sefer Bereishit, and finds engaging, instructive literary analysis that pulls new insights from familiar stories.

Malka Simkovich hunts for Jewish texts in some unlikely places.

Yitzchak Etshalom comments on the relationship between Lavan and Yaakov.

Did Rabbeinu Bahya mention a lightning rod centuries before it was discovered? Yaakov Taubes takes us on a journey through science, magic, and religion to help explain this medieval commentator’s cryptic comment about the Tower of Babel.

Meshulam Gotlieb analyzes a midrash on Jacob's ladder dream to understand Jacob's lifelong fear, how he became so fearful and how it affected his life.

Sarah Rindner asks what the Book of Leviticus, Leonard Cohen and the Liberty Bell all have in common.

Mark Glass puts the Akeidah in conversation with the surrounding narratives of the book of Genesis.

Does the Torah support a universalist or ethnonationalist political orientation? In this timely essay, Ezra Zuckerman Sivan explores the meaning behind key stories in Genesis through the framework of the Aleinu prayer.

Leah Sarna argues that this is the Passover to tell the stories of enslaved Jewish women: of the victims of October 7, who were and likely still are subjected to sexual violence, and of the heroic women in the era of the Exodus, who fought to ensure the perpetuation of the Jewish people.