Tanakh

With only two verses about him in the Book of Judges, not much is known about Tola ben Puah. Ami Hordes takes clues from his story's text and context to paint a fuller picture of who the judge was and why he was important.

Through the lens of social science and game theory, Ezra Zuckerman Sivan connects three stories in Tanakh of people who threatened the social order: the blasphemer, the wood-gatherer, and Achan.

Natan Levin examines King David’s character through a close reading of his narratives in the Book of Samuel.

AJ Berkovitz traces the reception history of a Midrash Tehillim that seems to equate the reading of Psalms with Torah study, offering a fascinating case study of how tradition evolves.

Yisroel Ben-Porat grapples with whether the case of the pregnant Sotah has implications for the debates surrounding abortion.

Daniel Berkove shows how parallels between the building of the Tabernacle and the building of Pharaoh's storage cities shed light on the differences between civilizations that those structures represent.

Nachum Krasnopolsky explains Rashbam's interpretation of the splitting of the sea as an educational experience.

Why did the women bring musical instruments out of Egypt? In her first Lehrhaus article, musicologist Rebecca Cypess draws a fascinating historical analogy between biblical and African-American slavery to shed light on the Exodus in Jewish tradition.

Rena Kosowsky compares the treatment of sexual assault in the Bible and the Talmud, and explores the implications of what that means for how we should address it today.

In his letter to the editor, Gershon Klapper draws upon three medieval sources that undermine Ben Greenfield's recent reading of the Zohar on the three attributes of the Avot.