Timely Thoughts

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.

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

Elli Fischer Just over a month ago, the Jewish world lost Rabbi Professor David Weiss Halivni, one of its greatest and most creative Talmudic minds...

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

David Polsky explores the similarities and differences between Hamas and the Jewish Zealots at the time of the destruction of the Second Temple.

Yiscah Smith explores the conceptions of teshuvah presented in the writings of the Piaseczner Rebbe and the Ba’al Ha-Tanya, identifying in them a novel approach to personal growth that speaks to contemporary Jews.

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.

Akiva Mattenson writes on the relationship between God and Judgement.

Contemporary physicians have been heroic in the battle against COVID-19, but what was it like to be one of a handful of Jewish doctors confronting the Bubonic Plague during the 17th-century in Italy? Prolific medical halakhist and historian Eddie Reichman takes a close look at the four Jewish graduates of the Padua medical school class of 1623.

James Diamond takes a fresh approach to Maimonides's Passover theology and "Elijah's Cup."