Tanakh

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.

Martin Lockshin reviews the Jewish Publication Society’s latest Bible translation, the JPS Tanakh: Gender-Sensitive Edition.

Yisroel Ben-Porat analyzes a Midrash offering non-misogynistic takes on the original sin.

Yitzchak Etshalom comments on the relationship between Lavan and Yaakov.

Mitchell First reviews Yehuda Landy's Purim and the Persian Empire.

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

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.

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.

Our modern Shabbat experience has been called "a taste of the world to come." But was this the case for the first Shabbat in the desert? Ezra Zuckerman Sivan considers the question.