March 28, 2024

TRADITION Questions: “Ghost Mitzvot” Response

Chaim Strauchler recently introduced us to the concept of “Ghost Mitzvot” which are beginning to come “back to life” with renewed interest and observance in our modern era. They have also awoken a set of questions by a pair of interlocutors aiming to tease out differences in the examples cited. Yaakov Jaffe, following an earlier post about tekhelet by Baruch Sterman, considers the case of new wheat (hadash) and the forces at play.
March 25, 2024

REPLY: Revenant Mitzvot

Responding to Chaim Strauchler’s recent essay about “Ghost Mitzvot” which fell out of use or disappeared and have surprisingly regained popularity in our own era, Baruch Sterman, of the Ptil Tekhelet Institute explains why the “royal and rarest blue” tzitzit strings and the process of producing them may be more of a unique story.
March 14, 2024

TRADITION QUESTIONS: Ghost Mitzvot

Economic prosperity and increased Torah learning have prompted efforts to rekindle mitzvot which the winds of history had extinguished. Chaim Strauchler asks what we can learn from the success and failures of these efforts.
February 15, 2024

TRADITION QUESTIONS: Super Seder

In the long annals of TRADITION (and upon the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field), never have the words “Super Bowl” appeared. Chaim Strauchler introduces the phrase into one of these sacred canons to probe the moving lines between sports culture and religious stricture. Seeing the resilience of Orthodoxy’s connection to popular culture in a yeshiva’s Super Seder, Strauchler asks how rising antisemitism affects the community’s feelings of apartness and “a part”-ness in the sports arena and beyond.