April 18, 2024
Published by Tradition Online at April 18, 2024
In our next installment of “Unpacking the Iggerot,” Moshe Kurtz investigates how R. Feinstein adjudicated a contentious dispute over a breakaway minyan, and what it means for the broader topics of economic competition, employment rights, and rabbinic authority.
April 15, 2024
Published by Tradition Online at April 15, 2024
Following Emancipation in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, when large numbers of Jews were conscripted into European armies, traditionalist segments perceived army service as a calamity. As demonstrated by Prof. Judith Bleich in an essay from the TRADITION Archives, extreme prejudice and antisemitism persisted in the armed forces and the promise of equality remained an illusion. However, she suggests, casting contemporary military service in the Israeli Army in terms that smack of the Czar’s Army and the cantonist system, especially at a time such as this, completely misses the point.
April 11, 2024
Published by Tradition Online at April 11, 2024
Judaism’s prominence in modern society as well as new communication technologies create opportunities for those outside Judaism to see what goes on inside. This is both an opportunity and a risk. Chaim Strauchler questions whether this reality requires change in how and what we communicate.
April 9, 2024
Published by Tradition Online at April 9, 2024
Jewish schoolchildren in New Jersey set up a popcorn stand to raise money to send pizza to Israeli soldiers. Avraham Stav got a lump in his throat as he swallowed his slice. In this next dispatch from the frontline, he describes the meaningfulness and sense of worldwide Jewish connection that these acts of support and encouragement have generated—flowing from the Diaspora to Israel and hopefully in the reciprocal direction as well.
April 7, 2024
Published by Tradition Online at April 7, 2024
Homes, be they our private homes, the Mishkan, or the State of Israel, are formed of promises, and October 7th challenged these promises and undermined our understanding of ourselves. As we hit the 6-month mark of this war and as we stumble through both horror and uncertainty, Rachel Sharansky Danziger considers how the Book of Leviticus offers comfort, and a way to visualize the path ahead.
April 4, 2024
Published by Tradition Online at April 4, 2024
Should I wear a kippa in today’s climate? This is a question being asked by many Jewish men. In this next installment of Moshe Kurtz’s new TraditionOnline series, “Unpacking the Iggerot,” we go back to the 1970s when many felt they could not cover their heads in the American workplace, and look at how R. Moshe Feinstein navigated a conflict between practical necessity and religious imperative with an eye on the long arc of how to best preserve halakhic integrity in American Orthodoxy.
April 2, 2024
Published by Tradition Online at April 2, 2024
“This war opened a new channel for me to connect with our religious world. I look at my duties and halakhic habits with new eyes,” writes Avraham Stav in another dispatch from the war. How do halakha, Torah study, and especially prayer transform our IDF soldiers and support their mission? How does it turn an army base into a space in which “the Lord your God who walks among you in your camp to protect you and to deliver your enemies to you”?
March 31, 2024
Published by Tradition Online at March 31, 2024
TRADITION’s most recent issue features a special section with short reflective essays on the events of October 7th and the ongoing war in Israel. In this episode, two of those authors meet to discuss the topics touched on in those very personal pieces of writing. Chaim Strauchler engages with Alex S. Ozar, who serves as a rabbi with the Orthodox Union’s JLIC and the Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale University. Alex’s essay, “War in Israel, in New Haven” captures the raw emotions, trauma, and fear of last Simhat Torah. He wonders: Is the Golden Age of American Jewry, in fact, over? He shares reflections on the Jewish experience on the Yale campus over the past number of months and what that experience says about the future of American Jewry. Amidst many frightening anecdotes, he communicates optimism about his students and the prospects for future Jewish success.
March 28, 2024
Published by Tradition Online at March 28, 2024
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.