Tanakh

In this essay, Yaakov Taubes explores and elucidates methods of dividing the Humash into sections, and analyzes their significance -- particularly through the lens of Parshat Mishpatim.

What inspired Azariah de Rossi to take a work that cut against the grain of rabbinic views of the Septuagint and make it accessible to his Hebrew-reading fellow Jews?

Elinatan Kupferberg argues that the boundaries between Torah and Madda have blurred and evolved throughout Jewish intellectual history. This erudite analysis upends our assumptions about Torah u-Madda and breathtakingly reimagines its past, present, and future.

Sam Glauber examines Abraham's place in his society.

In its opening verses, Parshat Shoftim describes a judicial system that enshrines pursuing Tzedek, or justice, as a core value. Benjamin Barer unpacks a Gemara in Sanhedrin that provides three distinct conceptions of the obligation to pursue justice, suggesting how we might build a more sacred society.

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.

Ben Greenfield explains that the attributes commonly associated with our forefathers are not attributes at which they excelled, but rather attributes with which they struggled.

Building on ideas from Jacques Lacan and Rabbeinu Bahya ibn Pakuda, Zach Truboff offers an innovative psychological reading of the Cain and Abel story.

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.

Tzvi Sinensky suggests that the Megillah itself confronts the question of Purim's legitimacy.