April 10, 2025

Leaping and Springing and Passing-Over

What brought about the moment of redemption from Egypt? Exodus 12 has the Israelites hastily preparing to leave—the display of their eagerness seemingly the necessary prerequisite for their freedom—while God passes-over above, busy with the slaying of Egyptian firstborn sons. The midrash, however, suggests that God, too, was acting with haste, eager to bring about the redemption. Ilana Goldstein Saks shows how Rashi’s interpretation offers a creative reworking of the midrash which both incorporates the midrash and remains true to the meaning of the biblical text, and gets to the very heart of the meaning of the holiday of Passover.
April 10, 2025

Unpacking the Iggerot: Shabbat Timers and Hatzalah

Was R. Moshe Feinstein a posek with a predisposition to dispensing lenient halakhic rulings? Moshe Kurtz argues that by looking at a sampling of his landmark Shabbat responsa we may be left with a very different impression of how R. Feinstein approached the world of contemporary halakha.
April 7, 2025

REVIEW: Renewing the Old, Sanctifying the New

Any new book by Marc Shapiro naturally elicits enthusiasm, given his role as one of Jewish Studies’ most erudite scholars. His most recent offering, “Renewing the Old, Sanctifying the New: The Unique Vision of Rav Kook “ (Littman Library) demonstrates how Rav Kook’s theological vision might contribute to contemporary Jewish thought. Yoel Finkelman reviews….
April 3, 2025

PODCAST: The COVID Seder

With Passover around the corner our minds are on the many preparations required to join our families around the Seder Table—and yet, who can forget the events of five years ago, when so many of us were isolated, locked-down, sheltering in place during that COVID Pesach of 2020. We’re pleased to share this episode of Moshe Kurtz’s “Shu”t First, Ask Questions Later” podcast, examining the COVID Zoom Seder controversy. Kurtz is joined by Yehuda Halpert, who takes us back to the pandemic halakhic literature, identifies important topics that the Jewish world wrestled with during those unprecedented days, and shows how those questions are still resonant for Jewish practice in 2025.
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