December 30, 2021

The BEST: One of Us

Sarah Golubtchik finds in Eric Bazilian’s song “One of Us” a positive theological exercise with potential to deeply impact the development of one’s religious persona.
December 28, 2021

New and Noteworthy Books

TRADITION’s seasonal roundup of noteworthy new titles in Jewish studies and learning.
December 26, 2021

REVIEW: A Guide of the Guide

A new Guide to the “Guide of the Perplexed” offers much to students of Rambam’s enduring classic – and is a cause to reconsider why each generation’s perplexed keep returning to that 12th-century text. Daniel Korobkin review’s Ben Zion Katz’s new “Student’s Companion to The Guide of the Perplexed.”
December 23, 2021

The BEST: Self-Reliance

Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” is an enduring and eloquent examination of that most American of virtues: individualism. Since the essential human being is the private self, how do we square the essay's teachings with a religious life of community and contribution to the other? Jeffrey Saks re-reads “Self-Reliance,” with its echoes in the Rav and the Reb, in this week’s The BEST.
December 21, 2021

REVIEW: Rabbi Ido Pachter’s Utopian Dream

Ido Pachter’s recent Hebrew manifesto “Diversity in Judaism” puts forth an interesting, if not problematic, vision for the place of halakha in modern Israeli society. Avi Baumol applauds Pachter’s push to create a fairer halakhic system—but cautions that reaching for utopia may lead to a far more dystopian result.
December 19, 2021

PODCAST: R. Yitzhak Twersky Between Law and Spirit

Join professors Carmi Horowitz and Jeffrey Woolf for a wide-ranging podcast conversation about the life and legacy of Rabbi Prof. Yitzhak (Isadore) Twersky zt”l, as reflected in the recent collection of essays, edited by Horowitz and reviewed by Woolf in TRADITION’s recent issue.
December 16, 2021

The BEST: In a Different Voice

Carol Gilligan’s "In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development" changed the way moral theory and psychology recognize different voices. Stephen Glicksman explains why this matters to everyone – and uses Gilligan's work to underline the various implications of the role of women in Jewish thought and communal life – in this week’s “The BEST.”
December 13, 2021

Remembering Rav Henkin

Today (9 Tevet) marks the first yahrzeit of R. Yehuda Herzl Henkin zt”l. Revisit content exploring his legacy published in TRADITION during this last year.
December 12, 2021

Where Are All the Women? 

Erica Brown wonders why women have been slow to return to shul post-COVID, and cautions our community about what’s lost when one side of the mehitza remains empty.