Tanakh

Yisroel Benporat juxtaposes the Akeidah with the Splitting of the Sea as similar tests of faith.

As we prepare for Passover, enjoy these three poems by Bruce Black meditating on the past, present, and future of our Exodus.

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?

Eliav Grossman contextualizes the femininity emerging from some of Proverbs' best known passages

Michael Kurin analyzes the building and existence of the Mishkan as a form of spiritual redemption for the mistakes which took place in the Garden of Eden.

Jack Bieler continues the conversation about the need for and feasibility of a Modern Orthodox humash.

Whose idea was Sinai? A midrash contends that Sinai was first conceived by Jethro. Ezra Zuckerman Sivan supports this Midrash from the Torah's text, and explains why Jethro was the appropriate vehicle for providing the rationale of Sinai.

In this essay, Aviva Lauer analyzes the Biblical prohibition against cutting down fruit trees in wartime, and connects it to messages about human dignity.

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.

In this essay, Michael Kurin analyzes the book of Esther in the context of the Second Temple and the diaspora.