Humash

In a chapter adapted from his new book, Be, Become, Bless: Jewish Spirituality between East and West, Yaakov Nagen suggests based on the Zohar that the world endures when we see Godliness in another person's face.

In an earlier Lehrhaus piece, Jeffrey Saks pointed to an obscure custom referenced by Shai Agnon not to eat until the tefillin strap marks fade from one’s arm. Here, Mois Navon shares what happened when he tried adopting this custom for himself.

Ezra Zuckerman Sivan examines how the yibbum triangle of Ruth, Tamar, and Lot's daughters teaches us how to rebuild our lives in a time of upheaval.

Eliezer Finkelman discusses the meaning of perfect repentance.

Mitchell First explains the difference in the wording of the tenth commandment in Exodus and Deutoronomy in light of a grammatical insight by Benno Jacob.

Daniel Berkove shows how parallels between the building of the Tabernacle and the building of Pharaoh's storage cities shed light on the differences between civilizations that those structures represent.

Why did the women bring musical instruments out of Egypt? In her first Lehrhaus article, musicologist Rebecca Cypess draws a fascinating historical analogy between biblical and African-American slavery to shed light on the Exodus in Jewish tradition.

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.

Ezra Zuckerman Sivan explains how an enigmatic passage in Masekhet Shabbat teaches us how we can use Shabbat to connect to an oft-hidden God.

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.