Timely Thoughts

  The Lehrhaus Editors Over the course of another tumultuous year, we have once again taken refuge in our Torah. We at The Lehrhaus are proud...

Ezra Sivan asks: Where is the justice in the tenth plague?

Jeffrey Fox examines whether watching football is problematic from a Torah point of view.

Aton Holzer explores the changing nature of Jewish interactions with Rome from Maccabees through the Rabbinic period.

Judah Kerbel discusses why we say an abbreviated Hallel on the last six days of Pesah and contemplates what that says about the war in Israel; self-defense is a must, as is gratitude toward God, but we also hold space for the losses on the other side.

A new poem by Hannah Butcher-Stell, for the Days of Awe.

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

It is customary to celebrate Tu Bi-Shevat by eating fruits and reciting the She-Hehiyanu blessing on them. This custom, however, has proved challenging in recent years as advances in technology have made it difficult to find new fruit—as defined by halakhah—to say the She-Hehiyanu

At the height of the cholera epidemic in 1831, Hatam Sofer delivered a timely sermon on a perplexing midrash to Parshat Ki Tavo. The take-home, suggests Elli Fischer, is all-too familiar in the COVID era.

Abraham’s participation in the war of the four kings against the five fits uncomfortably in the broader narrative of his life. Rabbi Mark Glass argues that this Abrahamic episode articulates a core Torah perspective on military might.