December 26, 2024

TRADITION Questions: “Front-Lawn” Hanukka

Simple Hanukka lights seem insufficient to the scale of modern holiday celebrations. Many Jewish homes now contain displays similar to those of their gentile neighbors – but with Hanukka themes. Chaim Strauchler questions the motivation for these enhancements and what they say about this moment in American Jewish life.
December 24, 2024

REVIEW: Living Time

Todd Berman uses an essay on Hanukka presented in a new English volume on the Jewish holidays to understand the challenging philosophy of R. Shimon Gershon Rosenberg (Shagar). The Hanukka lights function as a springboard to discuss the tension between the individual and tradition. “Living Time” is a book that offers insight into the mind of this iconoclastic Israeli thinker, a postmodern rabbi who has been both praised and criticized.  
December 22, 2024

PODCAST: The Halakhic Philosophy of Forgiveness

In a remarkable new essay appearing in TRADITION, Neti Penstein explores the interplay of halakhic sources in the writings of Maimonides, Rabbi Soloveitchik, and others, and brings her analysis of that wisdom to bear in offering a solution to a particular 50-year-old philosophical paradox about the meaning and mechanics of forgiveness. Penstein discusses her essay on the Tradition Podcast—and listeners will be reminded of the Rav’s closing remark in “The Halakhic Mind”: “Out of the sources of Halakhah, a new world view awaits formulation.”
December 20, 2024

ARCHIVES: The Thought of R. Joseph Grunblatt

R. Joseph Grunblatt, whose 11th yahrzeit is observed this Shabbat, was a talmid hakham, teacher, intellectual, orator, spiritual guide, and communal leader. His successor as rabbi of Queens Jewish Center, Judah Kerbel, takes us on a tour of R. Grunblatt’s writings in the TRADITION Archives, highlighting his openness, thoughtfulness, independence, and courage.