Ketuvim

Benjamin Barer traces the word Hevel through Jewish texts, showing how the use of the same word can teach us both about the wisdom of Kohelet we read this past Shabbat and the character of Hevel who we will read about in this week's Parashah.

In time for Tisha Be-Av, Marc Eichenbaum offers a meaningful new reading of Eikha using modern psychological concepts like grief, trauma, and narrative construction.

Jeffrey Burghauser's three poems draw on the biblical and rabbinic imagination.

Tzvi Sinensky argues compellingly for a new way to understand the relationship between Shir HaShirim and Pesach in times of quarantine.

In this second-place prize-winning essay for Hadar’s annual Ateret Zvi contest, Nehemia Polen approaches a vexing episode in the Torah through new lens: what if Moses and Aaron were denied entry to the Land of Israel not because of what they did when obtaining water from the rock but because of where they escaped to right before?

Mitchell First reviews Yehuda Landy's Purim and the Persian Empire.

Tzvi Sinensky suggests that the Megillah itself confronts the question of Purim's legitimacy.

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.

Tamar Weissman shows how the Druze minority in Israel remarkably resemble the biblical Kenites.

In a fascinating analysis, Gavriel Lakser places the Megillah in the context of the overarching struggle between the Jewish people and Amalek.