…modern redaction-criticism of Talmudic attributions relies on the notion that scholars can successfully localize earlier tannaitic and amoraic texts within a Talmudic passage, and that these sources, for the most part, retain their distinct identity.[…]
The rabbinic agenda, at least as expressed in the Talmudic literature at hand, embraced scriptural interpretation, legal explication and instruction coupled with the inculcation of moral values. If reference to the past could contribute to[…]
He was less concerned with the problems of anti-Semitism and discrimination than with building positive values in the minds of the young people of the country. Maurice Bisgyer, “Henry Monsky: His Work”, in Mrs. Henry[…]
In his Print, Manuscript, and the Search for Order, David McKitterick characterizes the relationship between print and manuscript in the early modern period as a long divorce. For Jews, one might posit that the divorce[…]
The era of the religious Right is over. Its collapse is part of a larger decline of a style of ideological conservatism that reached high points in 1980 and 1994 but suffered a series of[…]
Peshat is always of paramount importance, and derash is always accountable to the peshat. Nevertheless, the dividing line between them is not always clear, and so long as we keep within the limits imposed by[…]
Let’s not claim that we don’t have the money. We find the money for what we prioritize as a community. If you do not provide people with meaning, it is very hard to raise money[…]
If Jewish identity is seen only through the lens of freedom, and unbridled freedom is the value you crave, then who needs Judaism when you already have Americanism? It’s only when you expand the terrain[…]
As a form of disposable entertainment, the apocalypse market is booming. The question is why. The obvious answer is that these narratives tap into anxieties, conscious and otherwise, about the damage we’re doing to our[…]
[T]he real problem is that Jewish organizations have largely let go of the Jewish learning renaissance that was all the “rage” about a decade ago. Jewish study franchise programs are diminishing in attendance, recruiting for[…]