by Jennifer Zukerman '28 When I was about seven years old, my mother asked me to see if the mail had been delivered. I returned to report...

by Zan Alhadeff '27 How did Moshe know how to design the mishkan? God gives Moshe lengthy instructions, from detailing the building...

by Sarah Pincus '26 At the end of this week’s parsha, Bnei Yisrael famously exclaimed “na’aseh v’nishma–we will do and we will listen.”...

by Sophie Stern Greenbaum '28 The other day I asked my son, “Moshe, if you could time travel back to any time in history, where would you...

by Susan Hornstein '25 Sometimes, especially when life feels tough, we become hyper-focused on the troubles and miss things that are...

by Yehudit Mazur-Shlomi '27 When we encounter a “natural phenomenon” that defies the laws of nature, how do we react? Do we marvel at the...

by Rabbi Rina Krautwirth In the first few verses of Parshat Va'era, we encounter a pivotal moment in Jewish history: The beginning of...

by Ilana Gimpelevich '26 Parshat Shemot opens with a review of the entire household of Yaakov descending to Egypt. Coming on the heels...

by Emily Bell '27 Thomas Bell, my grandfather, died at home after many long months of hospice care at the age of 82. I was 18 years old....

by Sarah Kaufman '25 We’re used to seeing long lists of names in Bereishit, most typically in the early genealogies of humanity. If...

The rabbis of the gemara understood that creating the holiday of Chanukah was not a simple choice. Instituting a brakha on lighting...

In our last essay , we unpacked a debate between Ramban and Rambam about how to understand Birkot ha-Shachar. Are those brakhot  like a...

The adanim  were sockets that held together the structure of the mishkan . Without having them in place, the physical building simply...

The Architecture of the Sukkah Is the physical sukkah meant to be built like a permanent house or a flimsy tent? Is the experience of...

Before Hersh Goldberg-Polin was murdered by Hamas, his parents drove to the Gaza border, standing as close to their son as they...

Teshuva as a Paradigm for the Interaction of Heart and Mind There is perhaps no area of Jewish Law or Jewish life where we experience the...

In the first quarter of the twentieth century, two great Jewish thinkers wrote essays with the same title, “ Halakha v’Agadda ,” or Law...

Were I so inclined, I could make the argument that this time of year—the nine days from the beginning of Av and specifically the fast of...

Rabba Sara's perspective on Passover this year.

The Haggadah is the social story of the Jewish people. The Haggadah takes the disparate and often overwhelming experiences of our nation...