Journal

by R. Rafi Eis טוב טעם ודעת למדני כי במצותיך האמנתי: (תהילים קיט: סו) Teach me reason and knowledge, for I have put my trust in Your commandments. (Psalms 119:66) Jewish Continuity As a Minority in the World Successful transmission of Jewish values and traditions requires rabbinic leaders to clearly articulate the centrality of Torah. With ambivalent leadership, outside cultures ...

by R. Gil Student Book review of: Before Hashem You Shall Be Purified: Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik on the Days of Awe (Expanded Edition) Edited by Dr. Arnold Lustiger OU Press, 205 pages Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik (henceforth, the Rav) spoke in a majestic manner that captivated listeners for hours at a time. He dissected complicated halachic subjects in an exciting and ...

by Rav J. David Bleich The brouhaha surrounding the report of a forthcoming United States Supreme Court decision reversing its seminal decision in Roe v. Wade has subsided and with it a perceived institutional need prompting issuance of ill-conceived reactive statements. The actual decision that will assuredly spark further reaction and even more intense hand-wringing has yet to be announced. ...

by R. Rafi Eis The Pesach Seder places the family, and specifically the relationship of parents and children, on center stage. The Haggadah’s section of the Four Sons makes clear that parents have a duty to respond individually to each child, but it must be with the same overall Exodus story. In this way, the Seder serves as the critical ...

by R. Daniel Z. Feldman   I One is obligated to drink on Purim; everyone knows that. It is cut and dried, there is no other way to see it. Except, there is at least one other way to see it; at least one other opinion, that of one of the rishonim, namely Rabbenu Ephraim, cited first by the Ran. ...

by R. Moshe Schapiro It’s that season again. Snow blankets the hills and the valleys. Or where I live, the streets and the sidewalks. Of course, snow is cold, but the most noticeable thing about snow is that it is white. In fact, if you want to emphasize how white something is, you would almost always say, “It’s as white ...

by R. Yaakov Taubes Rabbi Yaakov Taubes is the rabbi at Mount Sinai Jewish Center in Washington Heights, New York. He also serves as an assistant director at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary at Yeshiva University, and is a PhD candidate in Medieval Jewish History at the Bernard Revel Graduate School for Jewish Studies. In connection with the Torah’s ...

by R. Eli Ozarowski Rabbi Eli Ozarowski serves as editor of the English Tzurba M’Rabanan halacha series as well as editor of numerous other Torah projects and sefarim. He is also a former editor of the Steinsaltz English Gemara series. Rabbi Ozarowski received semicha from RIETS and currently lives in Mitzpeh Yericho, Israel, where he also delivers frequent shiurim. Introduction[1]I ...

by R. Basil Herring Needless to say, the Rosh Hashana Machzor reflects many of the well-known themes of the Yamim Noraim. To name but a few: judgement, forgiveness, and  punishment; repentance, remorse, and resolution for the future, petition and request for the entire spectrum of needs and desires; Rosh Hashana as the anniversary of creation; descriptions of the heavenly angels ...

by David P. Goldman “There shall no man be able to stand before you: for the Lord your God shall lay the fear of you and the dread of you upon all the land that ye shall tread upon, as he hath said unto you,” Parsha Eikev concludes (Devarim 11). The Hebrew word that the King James Version translates as ...