Latest Essays

Illustrating four aspects of Shavuot from critical and traditional perspectives.

A Personal Reflection

A tale of chesed and chutzpah

A New Look at the Meaning of the Sotah and Nazir Rituals

Two Problems In Parashat Bemidbar 

A new insight based on archaeology

The Torah prohibits a mourning ritual called tonsuring, i.e., the pulling out or cutting of hair to express sorrow. Rabbinic interpretation understood these verses as a prohibition for men to shave their beards or temples with a razor. Ibn Ezra, however, uncharacteristically rejects the rabbinic interpretation of these verses, and Shadal, who accepts ibn Ezra's reading, goes as far as to say that he himself shaves with a razor.

A rejoinder to Rabbi Dr. Zev Farber’s “The Purification of a Niddah: The Torah Requirement.”

In the Priestly Torah and the Holiness School

Reading Shir HaShirim in Its Original Sense

As late as the Second Temple period, Passover and Chag HaMatzot were viewed as two separate holidays. What was the final impetus to concretize the synthesis of these holidays into one?

Doing history one better