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 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?

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.

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

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.

The worldview and thought process of Haman bear an uncanny resemblance to those of contemporary antisemitic movements. Drawing on the work of French psychoanalyst Jacque Lacan, Zach Truboff explores the fantasy at the heart of Haman's rage, takes note of its contemporary echoes, and proposes that Jews must beware of stumbling into our own version of this fantasy. This essay was written before the war with Iran. That Khamenei, who embodied the antisemitic fantasy as fully as any figure in our lifetime, was eliminated on the eve of Purim requires no commentary beyond what the Megillah itself provides.

Shlomo Zuckier seeks and uncovers rabbinic-Biblical intertextuality.

How can the mitzvot of Purim reveal the feminist ethics of the Megillah? Aton Holzer offers an enlightening new reading of the Megillah, suggesting that there is a profound connection between the text's structure and its ethics.

In advance of Shavuot, Stuart Halpern reviews Reading Ruth, a succinct but poignant new literary commentary on the Book of Ruth, by Leon Kass and his granddaughter Hannah Mandelbaum.

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