October 26, 2023
Lt. Amitai Granot was killed on the northern front last week. Days earlier, his father R. Tamir Granot, Rosh Yeshivat Orot Shaul in Tel Aviv, R. Tamir published an essay in Makor Rishon about the implications of the Hamas massacre, the meaning of an old-world pogrom in modern Israel, and the task before us as a nation. Yitzchak Blau presents this summary with the hope that these efforts honor the Granot family and the memory of Amitai z”l.
October 23, 2023
TRADITION’s recent issue features Dr. Yosefa Fogel Wruble essay, “Psalm 139: When God’s Presence Both Overwhelms and Eludes,” which explores the theological relevance in understanding this psalm as a form of emotional struggle with God. When the essay was written no one could have foreseen how its themes would become presciently relevant to our current moment—so we thought it would be appropriate to chat with the author about what she wrote in light of the events on Simhat Torah and the war.
October 22, 2023
A half-century 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 following the war, 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?