Tanakh

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.

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.

  Mark Glass I. It is fair to say that Sefer Vayikra is not known for its narratives. It is devoted, for the most part, to the...

The stories of Hagar and Ishmael's banishment and subsequent rescue by the angel and that of a cast-out baby Moses on the Nile rescued by Pharaoh's daughter are seemingly dissimilar, but this close reading by David Curwin argues that their strong parallels have a lesson to teach about the importance of being active and not succumbing to passivity.

Steven Weiner writes on the significance of tears on Tishah Be-Av and how they relate to the thanks of birkat ha-mazon.

In Part II of his series on trop, William Gewirtz explains the principle of recursion and how it helps us interpret texts.

In a follow up to her recent piece about Joseph, Batya Hefter traces Judah's character development through the eyes of the Ishbitz-Radzyn masters.

This year, instead of thinking about the reasons for Jonah’s flight from Nineveh in particular, we can gain a new appreciation for his need to break free altogether. Ahead of Yom Kippur, Erica Brown considers the unique resonance of the book of Jonah in an era marked by isolation and quarantine.

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.