March 18, 2025
Published by Tradition Online at March 18, 2025
In this episode of the Tradition Podcast, our associate editor Yitzchak Blau interviews author, researcher, and Makor Rishon columnist Yair Sheleg about his recent Hebrew book “HaHut HaMeshulash,” whose English title might be offered as “The Triple Chord: A Short History of Religious Zionism.” Rav Kook believed that Religious Zionism combines elements of religion, nationalism, and liberalism. Sheleg asks if contemporary Religious Zionism has remained loyal to this triple mission. If not, why not—and where has it fallen short?
March 13, 2025
Published by Tradition Online at March 13, 2025
From life-threatening scenarios to light-hearted Purim revelry, pinning down the precise parameters of the Biblical injunction against cross-dressing can be a tricky one. And whether it be in the American workplace or the Israeli frontiers, Moshe Kurtz has catalogued R. Moshe Feinstein’s array of rulings that have formed our understanding of this enigmatic halakha.
March 12, 2025
Published by Tradition Online at March 12, 2025
An early 18th-century Purim parody imagines Haman rotting in a jail cell, awaiting his execution, dictating his last will and testament to his ten beloved sons. Jeremy Brown surfaces this obscure text, and asks what its meaning might have been when composed in Livorno by David Polido, and what message it may contain for contemporary American Jewry.
March 10, 2025
Published by Tradition Online at March 10, 2025
What did R. Samson Raphael Hirsch think of Jewish distinctiveness? Did he believe there is a distinctive biological propensity for superior spiritual potential? Moshe Y. Miller, in responding to a recent review of his new book on Hirsch’s religious universalism, does some explaining.
March 5, 2025
Published by Tradition Online at March 5, 2025
With Purim a week away, Chaim Strauchler questions the number of weak-ties in our Jewish communities and what they say about Purims past and future.
March 3, 2025
Published by Tradition Online at March 3, 2025
Mali Brofsky and Mark Smilowitz discuss the central thesis of his recent essay, “Esther and the Spies: A Bible-Based Symbolic Meaning of Walled Cities from the Time of Joshua” (Fall 2024). The two explore its timely Purim message and its claims regarding faith and meaning, and how it can serve as a source of support during the great challenges facing us today.
February 27, 2025
Published by Tradition Online at February 27, 2025
R. Feinstein issued a surprising series of lenient rulings vis-a-vis the question of smoking. Moshe Kurtz, in this week’s edition of Unpacking the Iggerot, asks: What would he say today? The answer is not as clear as some might think.
February 24, 2025
Published by Tradition Online at February 24, 2025
In advance of the arrival of the month of Adar (and a week ahead of our reading of Parashat Shekalim), Chaim Strauchler questions what we choose to count in Jewish communal life. How does “modern” Jewish counting bias communal life? Does it cause us to fail to see those who do not fit traditional family models?
February 20, 2025
Published by Tradition Online at February 20, 2025
Jeffrey Saks uses the Editor’s Note to share some memories of Rav Elazar Meir Teitz zt”l, his warmth and humor, adding some color to the very many well-deserved tributes that properly praised his rabbinic leadership and phenomenal legacy as a manhig, talmid hakham, and posek.