TRADITION’s most recent issue features a special section with short reflective essays on the events of October 7th and the ongoing war in Israel. In this episode, two of those authors meet to discuss the topics touched on in those very personal pieces of writing. Chaim Strauchler engages with Alex S. Ozar, who serves as a rabbi with the Orthodox Union’s JLIC and the Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale University. Alex’s essay, “War in Israel, in New Haven” captures the raw emotions, trauma,...

Because TRADITION has always aspired to be more than a quarterly print journal and aims to help shape the conversation and have an impact in our religious community, about five years ago we broadened our reach by expanding our digital-direct offerings, producing shorter-form original content distributed on TraditonOnline.org and over social media—this includes the podcast, expanded coverage of books and cultural criticism, and a platform to feature new authors. Since December 2022 Yitzchak...

Yisroel Ben-Porat, a doctoral candidate in early American history at CUNY Graduate Center, is writing a doctorate on the Puritans’ use of the Hebrew Bible as a political text. In TRADITION’s recent Fall 2023 issue he offered a historical investigation of an enigmatic early eighteenth-century figure, “Rabbi” Judah Monis—the first known Jewish-born degree recipient and faculty member at Harvard, where he taught Hebrew for almost four decades. Monis converted in advance of his appointment, but...

Listen to an introduction to TRADITION’s upcoming Winter 2024 issue, with special content related to the ongoing war in Gaza. Jeffrey Saks observes: The initial shock, horror, and trauma of October 7th have in no way abated and all thoughts remain fixed on the “matzav”—our most abnormal situation. Writing from Israel, our editor considers the challenges for our religious community, the heartening reality of Jewish unity, and some sharp questions it poses for our way forward. Listen to this...

TRADITION’s Summer 2023 issue, recently made fully open access, contained a fascinating offering penned by Michael A. Shmidman, our distinguished editor emeritus, titled “Isadore Twersky’s Unique Contribution to the Study of The Guide of the Perplexed.” It is a presentation and analysis of five integral and interlocking components of Rabbi Professor Isadore (Yitzhak) Twersky’s understanding of Maimonides’ formulation of the relationship between the philosophic tradition and the Oral Law,...

As we continue to wrestle with the state of anxiety for what comes next at this troubling and traumatic time in Israel and around the Jewish world, we take strength from demonstrations of inspiring resilience and unity in our nation. We hope you’ve been following the content recently published on TraditionOnline.org responding to current events. In our upcoming Winter issue we hope to deliver some more substantive writing, tentative and initial as it may be, bringing the lens of Orthodox...

“The entire world is a very narrow bridge.” The world, all of life, is a “narrow bridge,” on either side of which is a gaping, terrifying abyss. Someone who does not live this experience cannot understand it. One needs to traverse the bridge, and it is clear from an objective perspective that he is capable of doing so. This is why “the main thing is not to fear at all.” Your greatest enemy is not outside of you, but, rather, inside of you. It is fear itself. So writes Prof. Shalom Rosenberg...

During this time of worldwide Jewish unity, TRADITION is pleased to deliver an episode of our podcast co-produced with our friends at Matan: The Sadie Rennert Women’s Institute of Torah Study in Jerusalem. Our recently released Fall 2023 issue features an essay by Dr. Yosefa Fogel Wruble titled “Psalm 139: When God’s Presence Both Overwhelms and Eludes” which explores two exegetical prisms for Psalm 139 and the theological relevance in understanding this mizmor as a form of emotional...

TRADITION and the Rabbinical Council of America brought together authors from our recent issue on “The Yom Kippur War After 50 Years” as they discuss insights from their contributions to our pages and the sudden, tragic timeliness of that issue for events unfolding in Israel. Dr. Shlomo Fischer, Rabbi Jeffrey Saks, Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Sinensky and moderator Mrs. Mali Brofsky. TRADITION has made the content of our entire special “Yom Kippur War After 50 Years” issue (Summer 2023) open access as a...

TRADITION’s Fall 2022 issue featured a lengthy essay by Todd Berman exploring a 6-decade-old critique launched by R. Eliezer Berkovits on Dr. Abraham J. Heschel’s “Theology of Divine Pathos.” In brief, the debate centered on Heschel’s contention that a prophet reacts to God’s emotions, that the navi is guided by God’s own feelings. For Berkovits, Heschel errs by aligning himself with the wrong side of the anthropomorphism and anthropopathism debate. Berkovits was a significant figure in...

On April 23, 2023, TRADITION and the Rabbinical Council of America convened our first TRADITION Today Summit, hosted at Congregation Rinat Yisrael in Teaneck, NJ, exploring “Material Success and Its Challenges.” Among the papers presented at the event was a fascinating item co-authored by Avital Chizik-Goldschmidt and Chaim Saiman, “Material Success and the Rise of ‘Modern, Orthodoxy’” – in which a lot rides on the title’s enigmatic comma. While the papers from the Summit will be appearing...

Three decades following the passing of the Rav zt”l his legacy endures and his teachings still inspire – but how do we communicate his Torah to a generation “which did not know Yosef” (R. Yosef Dov Halevi Soloveitchik, that is)? This is a question that is explored from a few different angles in TRADITION’s recent expanded issue on the thought of the Rav.  Readers of the special issue will discover that one of the many insightful perspectives on this particular question is offered by Mali...

Our editor, Jeffrey Saks, offers this audio version of his Editor’s Note introducing TRADITION’s special issue on the thought of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik zt”l. In Saks’ essay, “We Read the Rav to Know We Are Not Alone in Loneliness” (open access here), he shares his own personal encounter with the Rav’s writings at a pivotal moment in his own religious development, and discusses the important role the Rav played in the American Orthodox scene and in the pages of our journal.  Click here...

Here we are, days before the arrival of Passover. If we are not drowning in cleaning products, chances are we’re doing the equally important work—perhaps more important work—of reflecting on the Exodus story in advance of Seder night. A highlight of this week’s observances is the recounting of the biblical Ten Plagues. In an interesting new book, Dr. Jeremy Brown considers the Eleventh Plague, a kind of catch-all phrase he uses to explore how Jews as a people and Judaism as a religious...

Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg is an internationally recognized teacher and lecturer around the English-speaking world and, each week, in multiple settings in Jerusalem, where her unique style of integrating keen readings of the weekly Torah portion with the commentaries of midrash, classical meforshim, Hasidic interpretation, and more, are supplemented by the insights she draws from philosophy, psychoanalytical readings, literature, and culture at large – the “best that’s been thought and said,”...

Recording of Rabbi Chaim Brovender and Mrs. Mali Brofsky in conversation to mark the 120th birthday of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik zt"l. Hosted by TRADITION and WebYeshiva.org (12 Adar/March 5, 2023).

Dr. Tovah Lichtenstein and R. Jeffrey Saks in conversation to mark the 120th birthday of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik zt"l. Hosted by TRADITION and WebYeshiva.org (12 Adar/March 5, 2023).

Prof. Marc B. Shapiro’s recent essay “From the Pages of TRADITION: R. Esriel Hildesheimer on Torah Study for Women” (TRADITION, Summer 2022), was the subject of our most recent podcast. Shapiro joined Jeffrey Saks to discuss Hildesheimer’s legacy and that of 19th-century German Orthodoxy; the history of women’s Torah study; trends in Jewish education; and the intersections of Jewish history and thought. Marc B. Shapiro holds the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Chair in Judaic Studies at the...

In the 1970s Moral Philosophy turned its attention to an ancient topic – but coined a new name to organize our thinking about it. That field, now known as “Moral Luck” constitutes a set of fascinating and important philosophical debates. Do we judge people by their intentions, for good or for ill, or by the results of those intentions? This has serious implications for both ethics and jurisprudence, and in civil society as well as within our own religious Tradition. Rabbi Dr. Michael J....

TRADITION’s Summer 2022 issue featured an article by Yakov Nagen, “Sharing Torah with the World: The Jewish People’s Responsibility to Non-Jews.” The essay was part of a cluster of content related to topics in Jewish Universalism.  Nagen’s contribution is a learned treatment of issues related to the challenge of being a “light unto the nations” in which he argues that teaching Torah to non-Jews is the most effective way to fulfill our Jewish spiritual mission. His is a provocative thesis,...

As our readers and listeners likely know, since the launch of the TraditionOnline website in the summer of 2019 we have published a weekly feature called “The BEST.” In that column we have asked a wide variety of writers to consider what things “out there” in the big wide world make them think and feel. What elements in general culture potentially inspire us to live better? We have sought to share these insights on cultural objects – both high and low – that might still be described as “the...

With Rosh Hashana around the corner, and the end of the Shemitta year upon us, TRADITION’s editor Jeffrey Saks sat down chat with Shlomo Brody about his recent essay “The Curious Case of Prozbul’s Disappearance and Resurgence” (open access at https://traditiononline.org/the-curious-case-of-prozbuls-disappearance-and-resurgence). Brody’s essay offers a fascinating tour of an episode in the history of halakha: how the rabbinically enacted prozbul document, which helps circumvent the loan...

This is an Audio Editor’s Note from TRADITION’s newly released Summer 2022 issue—Rabbi Jeffrey Saks reads his essay “It Takes a Cosmic Village” which introduces a special section on Jewish Universalism. In this column our editor muses on a cluster of essays recently published in our pages, situating them at the intersection of Jewish Universalism and Particularism; or, in Rabbi Soloveitchik’s terms, between the “majestic cosmic sphere” and the humble “here-minded.” Saks considers how these...

The late and lamented Rabbi Jonathan Sacks was a frequent critic of the emergence of a post-truth culture and also a life-long opponent of moral relativism. Yet, in his book, “The Dignity of Difference: How to Avoid the Clash of Civilizations,” he was an ardent proponent of a form of religious pluralism. When first published over 20 years ago his position was both attacked and misunderstood—giving rise to questions about how his Orthodoxy and his devotion to objective truth were able to sit...