Timely Thoughts

Erica Brown explores the deeper meaning of joy in Megillat Esther and beyond.

Tzvi Sinensky suggests that we can best understand the Haggadah against the backdrop of Sefer Devarim.

  Zach Truboff In 1933, as the month of Elul approached, the Jewish people faced a frightening array of dangers. That year, Hitler consolidated power as...

What does the makeup of the altar drainage pipes tell us about the nature of holiness? Shlomo Zuckier explores!

This week's Parashah introduces us to the city of Shechem. Tamar Weissman examines the various appearances of this city throughout Tanakh, explaining that while it is a city of rupture, it is also one of covenant and fraternity.

Just in advance of the shloshim for David Ellenson, the former president of Hebrew Union College, Jonathan D. Sarna pays tribute to a man whose life, work, and friendships spanned the Jewish denominational divide.

Historian Henry Abramson, who is currently releasing a series of video lectures contextualizing Israeli history and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, asks hard questions about how to understand the post-October 7th world.

In 1927, Rabbi Boruch Ber Leibowitz wrote a poem, an ode to Rabbi Hayyim Soloveitchik of Brisk. Nati Helfgot provides the background and a translation.

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

Erica Brown considers the little-discussed prohibition on planting during the Nine Days and what it teaches about the nature of mourning and joy.