October 23, 2025
Published by Tradition Online at October 23, 2025
George and Ira Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess” fuses opera, jazz, and spirituals to create a uniquely American sound. Drawing on Jewish liturgical melody, the Gershwins transformed sacred motifs into secular skepticism. Chaim Strauchler reflects on how their work embodies both creative synthesis and moral tension in the pursuit of the artistic and spiritual “BEST.”
October 21, 2025
Published by Tradition Online at October 21, 2025
Join us in Teaneck on Sunday evening, November 9 for an in-person event: Rabbi Dr. Jacob J. Schacter and a panel of respondents on “Historical Realities & Educational Methodologies”— the open to the public Keynote event of the Tradition Today Summit.
October 18, 2025
Published by Tradition Online at October 18, 2025
TRADITION, together with the Rabbi Sacks Legacy, has published its largest ever issue dedicated to the thought of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks zt”l—view the table of contents, volume introductions, sample chapters, and essay abstracts. Join is online for a special “issue launch” on Sunday, November 2, as part of the series of events to be held worldwide in advance of R. Sacks’ fifth yahrzeit.
October 16, 2025
Published by Tradition Online at October 16, 2025
There is a fairly self-understood principle in halakha that it is forbidden to erase the Holy Name of God. What then are the implications for recordings found on our phones and laptops? With this new season on “Unpacking the Iggerot” Moshe Kurtz shows us how R. Moshe Feinstein addressed questions that emerged with new technologies.
October 6, 2025
Published by Tradition Online at October 6, 2025
The Sukka is a structure that turns a fleeting dream into a physical structure—giving it a chance for permanence once its fleeting time has passed. Avraham Stav recalls the early days of the war, two years ago, with their sleepless nights on flimsy army cots and in temporary mud dugouts, and the experience and potential of our own Sukkot.
October 5, 2025
Published by Tradition Online at October 5, 2025
In this episode of the TRADITION Podcast, Ilana Kurshan and Sarah Rindner Blum discuss how the time spent reading books with our children can yield profound intellectual and spiritual insights, not to mention deeper and more enjoyable relationships. Kurshan’s new book, “Children of the Book: A Memoir of Reading Together,” explores the ways in which reading books and learning Torah in the context of family life can be uplifting and transformative.
September 30, 2025
Published by Tradition Online at September 30, 2025
Two years ago TRADITION produced a special volume timed with the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War. At the time it seemed like nearly ancient history. Little did we know that past was merely prologue, and that shortly after the issue was released we were once again thrown into a traumatic war, similarly launched by sneak attack on an Autumn Yom Tov. Now, after nearly two years of war and ongoing anxiety for our soldiers and those held in captivity, in the hope that our readers will find it meaningful at this troubling, tragic time in Israel, TRADITION has made the content of our entire “Yom Kippur War After 50 Years” symposium issue (Summer 2023) open access as a digital book.
September 29, 2025
Published by Jeffrey Saks at September 29, 2025
The goral (casting of lots) takes a central role on Yom Kippur – from the method the high priest used to select which goat should be sent to the desert, to the sailors’ use of goral to determine that Jonah was the cause of the storm. Some think goral reveals a divine truth, but David Curwin presents another perspective in which the goral is actually a random roll of the dice which allows us to achieve our spiritual goals for the holiest of days.
September 28, 2025
Published by Tradition Online at September 28, 2025
As we prepare this week for Yom Kippur we will bring our readers a new daily offering from the TRADITION Archive offering insight and teaching for the High Holy Day. 52 years ago the Jewish world found itself in a situation not terribly dissimilar from our own. War arrived brutally and by surprise on an Autumn Yom Tov. Writing in the pages of TRADITION a half-century ago, Rabbi A.H. Rabinowitz, Chief Rabbi of the Air Force, asked “Why Yom Kippur?”—aside from Egyptian tactical strategy and hope for surprise, what was the spiritual meaning of the State being attacked on our holy day?