Tanakh

David Bashevkin articulates a religious educator’s perspective on why people become religious

At the height of the cholera epidemic in 1831, Hatam Sofer delivered a timely sermon on a perplexing midrash to Parshat Ki Tavo. The take-home, suggests Elli Fischer, is all-too familiar in the COVID era.

Tammy Jacobowitz reviews David Forman's latest book, a companion to Sefer Bereishit, and finds engaging, instructive literary analysis that pulls new insights from familiar stories.

Yaakov Beasley looks at Hayyim Angel's scholarship and evaluates it as an exemplar of Modern Orthodox Bible study.

Yitzchak Etshalom comments on the relationship between Lavan and Yaakov.

In time for Tisha Be-Av, Marc Eichenbaum offers a meaningful new reading of Eikha using modern psychological concepts like grief, trauma, and narrative construction.

Yisroel Ben-Porat offers historical, hashkafic, and personal reflections on what’s often called the “Judeo-Christian” tradition and whether a Torah u-Madda outlook can embrace the study of Christianity.

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

Did Rabbeinu Bahya mention a lightning rod centuries before it was discovered? Yaakov Taubes takes us on a journey through science, magic, and religion to help explain this medieval commentator’s cryptic comment about the Tower of Babel.

Leah Sarna argues that this is the Passover to tell the stories of enslaved Jewish women: of the victims of October 7, who were and likely still are subjected to sexual violence, and of the heroic women in the era of the Exodus, who fought to ensure the perpetuation of the Jewish people.