“The ability of an individual halakhist to bring about a change depends…on one’s ability to foresee the opposition of one’s peers to one’s innovation”
…the ability of an individual halakhist to bring about a change depends, to a...
Category Archives: Jewish
“recycling…is the likely explanation for the relative scarcity of metal finds at major urban centres at opposite ends of the Sasanian empire…”
It should be remembered that recycling is not a modern Western concept, but is...
Cultivated Crops during the Time of the Babylonian Talmud
As in earlier periods, the staple crops were wheat, barley and dates. A daily...
“The way to rectify corrupt sexual mores is by replacing them with a healthy code of sexuality, not by advocating asexuality”
The way to rectify corrupt sexual mores is by replacing them with a healthy...
Modern Orthodoxy’s “future will likely be as ambiguous and complicated as its complex, tension-filled philosophy”
Despite Rabbi Lamm’s eloquent and intellectually sophisticated elucidations of the Modern Orthodox world view,...
“…the most important source for mapping Jewish settlement and…urban reality as a whole in Sasanian Babylonia is the Babylonian Talmud”
By far, the most important source for mapping Jewish settlement and, in a sense,...
“The archaeological remains in Babylonia reveal few clear markers of Jewish identity”
The archaeological remains in Babylonia reveal few clear markers of Jewish identity. In the...
“At the core of the problem with synagogues is how the life of the synagogue is oriented”
I have witnessed firsthand the benefits and challenges that synagogues face today. I have...
“Rabbi Zera merely describes a stringent practice which Babylonian Jewish women had taken upon themselves”
This term, first used by medieval commentators (see Zimmerman, p. 27, note 6), is,...
“The phenomenon of a minority people arising out of the ashes of Auschwitz to reframe not only their world but to also profoundly impact the broader culture may best summarize this century of Jewish influence”
…out of the trauma and tragedy of the earlier decades of the 20th century,...