September 16, 2025

R. Lamm and the Founding of TRADITION

With the launch of the new “Lamm Legacy Library” we gain access to a treasure trove of archival material from the founder of TRADITION, Rabbi Norman Lamm z”l. Tzvi Sinensky offers a brief guided tour of items in the vast library reflecting on R. Lamm’s concerns and motivations leading up to the creation of our Journal of Orthodox Jewish Thought in 1958.
September 14, 2025

Halakhic Triage

Today’s Daf Yomi (Horayot 13a) implies that halakhic triage obligates one to save a man before a woman. The issue has significant ethical implications for contemporary medicine—who takes precedence for ICU admission in modern hospitals, or who should emergency responders treat first at the scene of an accident or after a terrorist attack? Revisit Alan Jotkowitz’s TRADITION essay surveying a variety of approaches to this complicated case of medical ethics. 
September 12, 2025

Sparks of Hidden Light and the Daf of Life

In remembering the renowned educator, R. David Ebner zt”l, who passed away this week, his student David Rozenson paints a portrait of a man who did not “rage against the dying of the light,” but searched, taught, sang, danced, and wrote, and in so doing helped countless talmidim to navigate the Daf of Life.
September 11, 2025

The BEST: Mines #19

Returning to The BEST, Chaim Strauchler writes on Edward Burtynsky’s photograph “Mines #19” and the paradox of modern beauty and devastation. At first a majestic landscape, closer inspection reveals a mountain dismantled by industry. Burtynsky’s large-scale photographs recall our dual role as stewards and exploiters of creation, echoing a fundamental biblical tension.