How can a rabbi instill hope and meaning even on a cancer ward? How does one learn how to really listen? Is it really possible to help people make sense of and even find meaning in their suffering? These and other weighty questions are addressed by Hanan Balk in his important book, “Wisdom from the House of Healing: Transformative Encounters of a Hospital Chaplain” (Ktav), reviewed by David Fine.

TRADITION’s Winter 2024 issue featured an essay by Dr. Aliza Bazak on “Shaming in Rabbinical Court Rulings in Israel: A Modern Commentary on Medieval Rabbinic Sanctions in Divorce Cases,” examining the mechanism of shaming as a tool to obligate recalcitrant husbands to grant their wives a divorce. She suggests that, as opposed to Jewish communities elsewhere, in Israel shaming is not an effective measure in obligating husbands to grant a divorce. Bazak was a guest on the “Medabrim Mishpatim” program to discuss her TRADITION essay. Watch now…

Rav Kook’s slim volume of personal mediations, “Hadarav,” was seen as groundbreaking and revolutionary when first published in 1998. The arrival of an English edition by Bezalel Naor (Maggid Books) is an occasion to examine trends in the thought and impact of Rav Kook, and the arrival of new posthumous publications by Rav Kook in the past quarter century. Zohar Maor profiles the new edition of “Hadarav” and considers transitions in Israeli society in the years since its first arrival.

It may come as a surprise that the Etrog is not native to the Land of Israel, but originated in Southeast Asia. How can we square our belief in the traditions of the Oral Law with the findings of history, botany, and agriculture that the Sukkot citron reached Eretz Yisrael only just prior to the Second Temple Era? Natan Slifkin offers an intriguing solution.