Timely Thoughts

A new poem from Zohar Atkins offers a poetic meditation on life in the COVID world.

Why is the annulment of vows so central to the High Holy Days? Wendy Amsellem discusses this, with a timely message.

In honor of Shavuot 5784, Dalia Wolfson presents five new bilingual poems that explore the themes of the third perek of Mishnah Bikkurim and contemplate their possible inversion.

Zev Eleff explains what Zionism has to do with Sukkot, at least in America.

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.

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.

Avraham’s challenge to God’s planned destruction of Sodom raises the fundamental ethical problem of collective punishment. The resolution of this challenge, Sruli Fruchter explains, enables Avraham to realize God’s highest ideals and to confront the conflict between compassion for oppressors and consideration for their victims.

Why have stories of Jewish masquerade captured audiences since ancient times? In her latest, Malka Z. Simkovich explores the hidden meaning behind dressing up, from the Second Temple to '90s cinema.

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

Jerome Marcus explores understandings of freedom within halakhah and how they relate to Pesah and Shavuot