June 18, 2025
Published by Tradition Online at June 18, 2025
The Tradition Podcast brings together Marc Herman and Ahron Adler to discuss aspects of their common work on Maimonides. Among other topics, they consider differences in approach to Maimonidean research carried out by academicians as opposed to a rabbinic educator who benefits from certain academic methods, and how Adler synthesized traditional “yeshiva style” learning with academic tools in his new book, reviewed by Herman recently in TRADITION.
June 16, 2025
Published by Tradition Online at June 16, 2025
The life of moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, who passed away last month at age 96, constituted a roaming intellectual and spiritual journey. His critique of secular moral theories that had emerged out of the Enlightenment as abject failures should cause people of faith to pay attention to his writing. Daniel Rynhold observes that most Orthodox Jews have been exposed to MacIntyre through his profound impact on the thought and teachings of R. Jonathan Sacks—and encourages us to dig deeper into the source.
June 14, 2025
Published by Jeffrey Saks at June 14, 2025
As Israel ends Shabbat many are exiting their safe rooms and first starting to absorb the news of the past 24 hours. In my home in Efrat we entered the "mamad" with the sirens right at the moment of candle lighting on Friday, and have been in and out since. The anxiety of the moment draws our mind back to one of the most arresting posts TRADITION has published since October 7, 2023: this reflective essay by Israeli poet Bacol Serlui. Please read it with prayer for Israel and those standing in its defense. —Jeffrey Saks, Editor
June 12, 2025
Published by Tradition Online at June 12, 2025
Chaim Strauchler questions the non-materialist social effects of contemporary Yom Tov travel programs and their growing popularity.
June 9, 2025
Published by Tradition Online at June 9, 2025
Rachel Auerbach was a writer and journalist who worked for the Polish and Yiddish press in pre-war Poland when Emanuel Ringelblum, the chronicler-martyr of the Warsaw Ghetto, drafted her to the Oyneg Shabbos archival group, which heroically documented the Nazi oppression. In his review of Aurbach’s “The Jewish Revolt” David Bernstein profiles Auerbach as an inspiring, mission-driven woman.
June 5, 2025
Published by Tradition Online at June 5, 2025
May observant Jews call their children by non-Jewish names? What even is the proper delineation between a Jewish and a non-Jewish name? Moshe Kurtz explores how R. Moshe Feinstein’s approach to these questions gets at the heart of how he understood the definition of Jewish identity.
June 1, 2025
Published by Tradition Online at June 1, 2025
Aton M. Holzer carefully reads the Shavuot hymn Akdamut and discovers a great deal about the intellectual life, thought, influences, polemics, spoken language, and Jewish life in Ashkenaz before the First Crusade.
May 29, 2025
Published by Tradition Online at May 29, 2025
Chaim Strauchler notes popular worries surrounding the rule of law and juxtaposes these concerns to basic themes of Shavuot – z’man matan Torateinu – namely the centrality of law within Jewish thought. How does Judaism preserve the rule of law in the face of forces that attempt to confound it?
May 25, 2025
Published by Tradition Online at May 25, 2025
As we approach the holiday of the giving of the Torah, David Shatz profiles a remarkable work by Zechariah Haber z”l, who fell in battle in Gaza, leaving behind a profound body of Torah scholarship, now published posthumously as “Minha Hadasha” (Yeshivat Har Etzion). “Its pages,” Shatz writes, “amply display the analytic brilliance of Torah, her richness and beauty; while the persona and life story of author augments our reverence for those who not only passionately love Torah, but stand ready to sacrifice their lives for the nation that treasures her.”