Timely Thoughts

Two letters to the editor provide alternative perspectives on the question of what Jewish law wants American abortion law to be.

Sarah Rindner asks what the Book of Leviticus, Leonard Cohen and the Liberty Bell all have in common.

Yaakov Jaffe explores Yehuda Ha-Levi's Yom Le-Yabasha.

Yosef Lindell argues that the Haggadah focuses on the story of the Exodus rather than on the laws of the paschal sacrifice as a way of looking forward towards the future redemption.

In the spirit of Hanukkah, Yaakov Jaffe offers an intriguing thesis tying together a series of Mishnayot in the fourth chapter of Pirkei Avot: they are all responding to various aspects of Epicurean philosophy.

Did the Founding Fathers study Kabbalah? Yisroel Ben-Porat reviews Brian Ogren’s new book Kabbalah and the Founding of America.

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

Israel is at war, and the suffering is difficult to bear. To better appreciate this transformation and the pressures of this moment, we have assembled a symposium of community leaders and thinkers to address the effect of the crisis on Diaspora Jewry.

Yisroel Ben-Porat grapples with whether the case of the pregnant Sotah has implications for the debates surrounding abortion.

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