The following piece is a book reivew of For Women and Girls Only: Reshaping Jewish Orthodoxy through the Arts in the Digital Age. Ben Rothke In the early 20th century, it was not easy to be an Orthodox Jew in the United States. Trying to work and be observant of Shabbat was challenging. That struggle created the notion of a hashkamah minyan where a person could pray early on Shabbat morning in the synagogue and leave early enough to make it to work on time. The options for Orthodox women wanting to pursue avenues in song, film, dance, and music were almost nonexistent if th ..read more

  Kate Rozanky Who among us (who struggle to balance the mundane demands of life with the sublime demands of talmud Torah), has not reflected somewhat wistfully on the story of Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai? R. Shimon and his son Rabbi Elazar famously spend 13 years hiding in a cave, doing nothing but studying Torah. To the ambitious Torah learner, the idea of living like R. Shimon can sound extremely attractive: a life of perfect learning with minimal distracting obligations and bodily needs. But as the cave story unfolds, we see that the idyllic nature of such a life is fleeting at best, large ..read more

  Yael Jaffe As you walk into the room, you hear voices arguing back and forth. You can’t make out the sound of any particular conversation over the murmur of many intense, simultaneous conversations, but the total energy is palpable. The discussion is animated, and amid the wrinkled brows of thought and concentration abound the smiles of joy and fulfillment. If you once have witnessed this uplifting scene, you know that the above description is of someone entering a beit midrash, a Jewish house of study. In forming one’s identity as a Torah learner, participating in this vibrant atmosphe ..read more

  Mark Glass I. It is fair to say that Sefer Vayikra is not known for its narratives. It is devoted, for the most part, to the dry detailing of specific laws governing the conduct of priests and the sacrificial service―hence Hazal’s term for it, Torat Kohanim, “the Law of Priests” (Megillah 31b), preserved by the Latin (and thus English) name Leviticus. Not only does this render any narrative found within Sefer Vayikra noteworthy in its own right, but it makes all the more astonishing the existence within Sefer Vayikra of a narrative that, ostensibly, exists to teach a matter of law: the ..read more

  Nathaniel (Nati) Faber In January 2023, famed YouTuber, Mr. Beast received lots of backlash on a video he made where he ”cured” blindness for 1,000 people. While many accused Mr. Beast of performative altruism, I think the mainstream media misunderstood why so many people in the blind community were upset by his performance. Mr. Beast took what is called the “Medical Approach” to disability. The Medical Approach to disability holds as its fundamental tenet that is better to be abled than non-abled. This turns disability into a purely medical phenomenon. The disability is essentially the ..read more

  Steven Gotlib Review of Eugene Korn, Israel and the Nations: The Bible, the Rabbis, and Jewish-Gentile Relations (Brookline: Academic Studies Press, 2023). In his recent book, Israel and the Nations, Eugene Korn argues that being a blessing for all (Gen. 12:3) “implies that the Jewish people should engage with gentiles” (1)[1] and that being a covenantal people involves participating “in the unfolding of sacred history” (9) alongside other faiths. His approach is predicated on Noah being given a general covenant followed by Abraham’s specific one. As a result, Jewish theology has tradit ..read more

  Temima Weissmann “Filling In” We heard only fragments on Simchas Torah morning as words carried themselves like ashes across the dark roads of silent cities. Suddenly we were back in 1938 standing in line at a newspaper stand, reading over the shoulder of the man before us, his hat blocking the beginning of the headline. And we were left filling in what we could not begin to understand. “The Poet of Auschwitz” I often imagine there was a poet of Auschwitz who came up with a far better word to describe the curve of the metal sign that greeted him than we could ever muster. Who fought onl ..read more

  David Matar Rabbinic collections are replete with fascinating stories that recount pivotal events in Jewish religious and political history. One such event was the first recorded appearance of the famous sage Hillel on the national stage, when he ruled on a halakhic question with regard to the offering of the Passover Sacrifice in the Temple. This rabbinic story has come down to us in three versions: The original recension as told by Tanna’im in the Tosefta (Pesahim 4:13-14); a later adaptation and retelling by Amora’im of Eretz Yisrael in Talmud Yerushalmi (Pesahim 6:1); and a still la ..read more

  Judah Kerbel The Last Days of Pesah: Zeman Simhateinu?When praying the Amidah and saying Kiddush on Festival nights, we mention the name of the holiday and the character that the time represents. Pesah is Zeman Heiruteinu; Shavu’ot is Zeman Matan Torateinu; and Sukkot/Shemini Atzeret is Zeman Simhateinu. Each festival is characterized differently, and that characterization lasts throughout the entire holiday. That, at least, is the common and contemporary practice. In Darkei Moshe, the Rema cites Sefer Minhagim of R. Isaac Tyrnau and Minhagei Maharil who say that for the entire Pesah fe ..read more

  Nathan B. Oman (introduction by Chaim Saiman) In his classic 1941 law review article, “Consideration and Form,” the legal theorist Lon Fuller explained that the need for contractual formalities is inversely related to the substantive grounds of the transaction. “Where life has already organized itself effectively,” argued Fuller, “there is no need for the law to intervene.” But when the business rationale is less apparent, formalities become necessary to draw attention to the legal implications of the undertaking. Reading this article as a first-year law student, I recall excitedly scri ..read more