Tanakh

Malka Simkovich explores how Chazal approached our sacred texts in their midrashic allegories and how this issue continues to effect our approach to the torah today.

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.

Lazarre Simckes analyses Joseph’s dreams through the lens of trauma psychology.

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.

How was the original Seder experienced, and how do we constitute a Jewish collective? Joel Levy and Leon Wiener-Dow argue that the collective must begin with the independent-minded individual.

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.

Yaakov Jaffe provides an ideological argument against including ideology in our Chumashim.

Abraham’s participation in the war of the four kings against the five fits uncomfortably in the broader narrative of his life. Rabbi Mark Glass argues that this Abrahamic episode articulates a core Torah perspective on military might.

Erica Brown considers the little-discussed prohibition on planting during the Nine Days and what it teaches about the nature of mourning and joy.

Infertility figures as a tragic theme not only on Rosh Hashanah but also in biblical narrative and modern life. This morning, Yael Leibowitz writes lyrically on The Birthplace of Infertility.