Excerpted

“When you vote, you hopefully evaluate the full gamut of issues and discover that on some issues one party’s views are more in accordance with Torah and on others it is the other party’s, and often neither are”

10 December 2019 Drew KaplanHalakhah

I understand that we have both College Democrats and College Republicans chapters on our campus. To be honest, I don’t understand why. Don’t get me wrong — I can readily understand why a Torah Jew[…]

“…impeachment had all but vanished from English practice when American delegates to the Constitutional Convention provided for it…”

3 November 2019 Drew KaplanPolitics in America

Impeachment is an ancient relic, a rusty legal instrument and political weapon first wielded by the English Parliament, in 1376, to wrest power from the King by charging his ministers with abuses of power, convicting[…]

Considering the paradoxes of Sukkot

16 October 2019 Drew KaplanHolidays

I love the paradoxes of Sukkot: a holiday with profound universalistic theological overtones that became politically important for particularists; a holiday that uses the metaphor of the sukkah both to imagine the canopy under which[…]

“…as creators of Halakhah, we must work to make sure that every halakhically committed voice is genuinely heard”

11 October 2019 Drew KaplanModern Orthodoxy

…communities need joy to survive, and Modern Orthodoxy cannot be built on constant moral self-denial. It is true that as subjects of Halakhah, our foremost duty is to find ways to obey even when our[…]

“The decision of which siddur a congregation should use is both a significant choice for any congregation, and a choice whose importance should not be exaggerated”

23 September 201923 September 2019 Drew KaplanPrayer

The decision of which siddur a congregation should use is both a significant choice for any congregation, and a choice whose importance should not be exaggerated. Purchasing a new siddur is a significant expense for[…]

“the Artscroll Siddur is the product of a worldview which does not reflect the values of the Modern Orthodox community and therefore cannot truly meet the needs of our community”

23 September 2019 Drew KaplanModern Orthodoxy

…the Artscroll Siddur is the product of a worldview which does not reflect the values of the Modern Orthodox community and therefore cannot truly meet the needs of our community. There is no indication that[…]

“The reality of this primary process is that if you aren’t on the stage in Houston next week, you aren’t going to be the Democratic nominee”

12 September 2019 Drew KaplanPolitics in America

…the 10 men and women not on the stage will argue that the Democratic National Committee’s rules on how to qualify for the Houston debate (2% in four early state or national polls and 130,000[…]

Challenges of reconstructing Rashi’s Torah commentary: “there never was an Urtext of Rashi’s Torah commentary”

7 July 2019 Drew KaplanHistoriography

…synopsis of the current state of knowledge regarding medieval Jewish scribal practice, manuscript production, and fluid redaction that led to multilinear production shows that texts continued to evolve long after their initial publication. Authors never[…]

“Invoking the word does not demean the memory of the Holocaust. Instead, the lessons of the Holocaust will be lost if we refuse to engage with them.”

24 June 2019 Drew KaplanPolitics in America

…it’s important to note that despite the contemporary association of concentration camps with the Shoah, they are not a Nazi invention. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, various imperial forces — including the[…]