Miriam’s Song and the Persistence of Music in Dark Times

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.

Frum and Free? Passover and Jewish Views on Liberty

Aton Holzer offers a novel re-reading of the Seder, arguing that it reflects and recreates four types of liberty that can be found in the Exodus narrative, as well as a fifth form of freedom.

Imagining Passover

As we prepare for Passover, enjoy these three poems by Bruce Black meditating on the past, present, and future of our Exodus.

The Gift of Shabbat as the Trace of God’s Caring Hand on our Faces

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.

Revelation Deferred but not Denied: the Golden Calf as a Rabbinic Origin Story

Amitai Bin-Nun provides a fresh and intriguing perspective on the story of the Golden Calf by reading it in light of the Talmudic passage in Menahot detailing an encounter between Moses and R. Akiba on Mt. Sinai where God is tying crowns to the letters of the Torah scroll.

The Difference Between Lo Tahmod and Lo Tit’avveh: An Insight Based on the Hitpa’el

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.

The Sacrifice of Moses

David Fried argues that the question of Moses seeing the face of God reveals the tragic choice Moses made in choosing between his own spirituality and that of his people.

When Shabbat first provided a Taste of the World to Come

Our modern Shabbat experience has been called "a taste of the world to come." But was this the case for the first Shabbat in the desert? Ezra Zuckerman Sivan considers the question.

Manna as a “Detox Diet”: On Rav Mendel of Rymanov’s Segulah for Parnassah

Lehrhaus Founding and Consulting Editor Elli Fischer on why R. Mendel of Rimanov is said to have spoken about the man every Shabbat for 22 consecutive years, and why reciting parshat ha-man the Tuesday before Parshat Beshalah might not be a segulah for parnasa, but R. Mendel's exhortation to be content with our lot.

A New Coffee-Table Humash is a Gateway to Academic Biblical Scholarship

As we begin to read Sefer Shemot, Yosef Lindell explores Koren Publishers' new series, The Tanakh of the Land of Israel, the first volume to use Rabbi Sacks’ Humash translation.