Mrs. Cooperman wishes all readers of TRADITION a good Shabbos - Rosh Hodesh - Hannuka! Revisit her classic wisdom for this Shabbat in the timeless essay of our esteemed editor emeritus, Rabbi Emanuel Feldman, who taught us that old Mrs. C, unlearned as she may have been, “poured out before the Creator every Shabbat morning” a “torrent of words” which contained “a key ingredient of worship.”

The Maccabees won the battle, but did they lose the war? Modern scholarship demonstrates that Judaism was irrevocably transformed by its encounter with Hellenism, which ushered in a new way of thinking about existence and God’s place within it. Post-modern philosophers raised searing critiques of Hellenistic metaphysics and theology. In a remarkable passage, Rav Kook articulates the sharpest of these. He goes on to read the Hanukkah miracle as an allegory for the ultimate resolution to the crisis, one which anticipates key ideas of postmodern thinker Jacques Derrida. Aton Holzer explains....

Responding to his interlocutors, Todd Berman defends the position he staked out in his recent TRADITION essay, maintaining that as far as the doctrine of Divine Pathos goes, Abraham J. Heschel offered an authentic reading of Jewish tradition—against the critique penned by Eliezer Berkovits in TRADITION in 1964.

TRADITION’s most recent issue featured a lengthy essay by Todd Berman exploring a nearly 6-decade-old critique launched by R. Eliezer Berkovits on Dr. Abraham J. Heschel’s “Theology of Pathos.” In brief, the debate centered on Heschel’s contention that God experiences emotion after a fashion. Berkovits’ essay aroused debate among our editorial board, and Berman’s essay has evoked similar sharp differences of opinion among our readers. In advance of an exchange of letters between critics and the author, TRADITION’s editor has done a deep-dive of our archives to helped to resurface some interesting related content and context.

TRADITION’s “Sources & Resources” column, under the editorship of Yitzchak Blau, has become a regular feature of our journal over the last number of years, and reflects the broader range of Torah study taking place in yeshivot and midrashot, and in our schools and synagogues. Visit the growing library of “Sources & Resources” which are now archived for your easy access. 

A new book tackles complicated topics in halakhic astronomy, targeting laypeople who are familiar with the traditional rabbinic sources but who lack a background in the science. In attempting to clarify the many positions for calculating tzet ha-kokhavim, so important for many religious observances, the author (with a distinguished Haredi pedigree) demonstrates his willingness to embrace scientific inquiry and worldly wisdom in the service of halakhic observance. Tom Rosenfeld reviews “The Great Z’manim Debate.”