July 28, 2025
Published by Tradition Online at July 28, 2025
Before October 7, 2023, conventional thinking was that Israel had abandoned its pioneering ethos of self-sacrifice on behalf of the larger community—just another victim of rising affluence and liberal, Western individualism. Moshe Weinstock charts the return of repressed values of collective responsibility, which have lain dormant as part of a national, Jewish “deep consciousness,” now awoken during these many long months of war.
July 27, 2025
Published by Tradition Online at July 27, 2025
Jerusalem is described in Eikha as a lonely city. In advance of Tisha B’Av, Erica Brown examines the theme of loneliness in the book’s first chapter set against the pandemic of loneliness researchers decry today and questions if “the lonely city” metaphor is useful of debilitating in describing Israel’s current alienation.
July 24, 2025
Published by Tradition Online at July 24, 2025
R. Uri Brilliant’s “Torah Hayyim Sheli” adds novelty to Torah commentary through connecting the ideas in the weekly parasha to episodes in the author’s life. Yitzchak Blau’s “Alt+SHIFT” shows how Brilliant’s stories and the Torah insights prove worthwhile. The tales draw on Brilliant’s own life story and episodes from the lives of others; his analysis of each parasha divides between commentary on the text and a deep analysis of the reasons for commandments.
July 23, 2025
Published by Tradition Online at July 23, 2025
With the goal of honoring and exploring the intellectual contributions of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks zt”l, TRADITION will publish a special book-length issue containing essays by rabbinic, educational, and thought leaders in our community from the United States, Israel, the United Kingdom, and around the world. Join your name to this tribute with a sponsorship donation.
July 22, 2025
Published by Tradition Online at July 22, 2025
TRADITION’s Summer issue is making its way to subscribers’ mailboxes and is available online. Highlights include Noah Cheses on the challenges of delivering bad news; Tamar Weissman on the power of place in the Book of Judges; Jason Weiner on anti-aging interventions in Jewish law and thought; book reviews on Hungarian Orthodoxy, halakha and mental health, C.S. Lewis and the Jews, and more.
July 20, 2025
Published by Tradition Online at July 20, 2025
As a self-proclaimed “unrepentant darshan,” R. Norman Lamm was renowned for his ability to illuminate our understanding of philosophy, human psychology, and religious experience in memorable and masterful prose. Through the prism of the newly published “Al Ha-Rishonim ve-al Ha-Aharonim” (Kodesh Press), Yona Reiss highlights R. Lamm’s contributions to classical Lomdus.
July 17, 2025
Published by Tradition Online at July 17, 2025
Israeli poet Bacol Serlui’s collection of autobiographical essays is a wide-ranging account touching on weight struggles, the author’s religious journey, female patients and male doctors, contemporary discourse about tzeniut, growing up as the child of divorced parents, and balancing time between domestic responsibilities with professional aspirations. Yitzchak Blau’s “Alt+SHIFT” reviews how the author's important insights in these disparate fields and how they play themselves out in Israeli Religious Zionist life.
July 14, 2025
Published by Tradition Online at July 14, 2025
In this episode of the Tradition Podcast we update our listeners on some happenings over on our website, TraditionOnline.org. Chaim Strauchler has been offering us “Tradition Questions” prodding us to think about an array of issues facing religious life. That column is now going off on hiatus and we spoke with Chaim about the answers and insights he found in the course of “Tradition Questions.” Moshe Kurtz has presented 30 installments in his “Unpacking the Iggerot” series, exploring the background and reception history of R. Moshe Feinstein’s most consequential response in the Iggerot Moshe. We catch up with Moshe to survey what’s been accomplished in that series as it goes off on summer break.
July 10, 2025
Published by Tradition Online at July 10, 2025
Yitzchak Blau returns for a special summer supplement to his popular Alt+SHIFT series—with its insider’s look into trends, ideas, and writings in the Israeli Religious Zionist world helping readers from the Anglo sphere gain insight into worthwhile material available only in Hebrew. We begin with sketch comedian Yair Jacobi’s collection of humorous essays, which offer a lighthearted but insightful lens on Dati-Leumi life.