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.