Timely Thoughts

Pressed for time, people often skip reciting the korbanot section of the morning prayers. With the High Holidays approaching, Judah Kerbel makes the case that the korbanot are far more central and halakhically significant to our prayers than we often realize.

Jeremy Brown discusses some remarkable Talmudic and historical precedents for social distancing during pandemics.

Tzvi Sinensky explores the hidden world of Esther with the help of Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Through an analysis of Hanukkah ads, Yael Buechler explains how Yiddish newspapers used the Old Country language to acculturate Jews to the New Country.

As 2021 comes to a close, the Lehrhaus team is delighted to highlight many of the thought-provoking essays we’ve published this year, with a diverse array of incredible thinkers and writers.

Shlomo Zuckier asks what we can learn from Shaul's mistakes in this week's Haftara.

In a rare piece of Lehrhaus Purim Torah, Mark Glass explores—with surprising halakhic rigor—whether the Pokémon named Bulbasaur’s use of a Solar Beam attack would constitute cooking on Shabbat.

In unpacking the meaning of a tricky verse from Eikhah that we say as part of the Shofar service on Rosh Hashanah, Mitchell First introduces us to the literary principle called hendiadys, which can help us understand various phrases throughout Tanakh.

Yosef Lindell offers a brief history of Pesah guides.

Judah Kerbel explores how differing approaches to listening to music during Sefirat ha-Omer balance the appropriate role for subjectivity in halakhic decision-making.