Ketuvim

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.

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.

How did Esther shape the way Puritans saw the ideal role of the contemporary woman? Cotton Mather, a major player in the Salem Witch Trials, had much to say in his Ornaments for the Daughters of Zion. Stuart Halpern of Yeshiva University explains, wishing us all a Puritan Purim.

Ezra Zuckerman Sivan examines the significance of the six barleys that Boaz gives Ruth in light of the story of Rachel, Leah, and the duda'im.

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

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?

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

Tzvi Sinensky contends that the rabbinic and feminist readings of Vashti are not diametrically opposed.

Shlomo Zuckier seeks and uncovers rabbinic-Biblical intertextuality.

This essay by Aaron Zeitlin—originally published in Yiddish in 1967 and translated here into English by Daniel Kraft—explores Aaron’s father Hillel Zeitlin’s approach to anti-semitism by way of the Book of Jonah.