The Torah is often used to highlight various ethical values while its many ethically problematic commandments are ignored or explained away. Is there a way to treat the Torah as a moral authority while honestly confronting the ethical issues it raises?
Dr. Rabbi
Zev Farber
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The Talmud requires having two unspecified cooked dishes to be eaten as part of the Passover meal. How did this requirement develop into the custom of placing two particular symbolic foods, the shankbone and the egg, on the seder plate?
Dr.
Joshua Kulp
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In halakha, the 39 melachot of Mishnah Shabbat 7:2 functions as a comprehensive list of primary categories of forbidden labor. A closer look at the list in context, however, reveals that it was composed and added as a supplement, to clarify a detail in the previous mishnah.
Prof. Rabbi
Judith Hauptman
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Shemurah matzah, “guarded matzah,” has two meanings: The matzah is guarded so that it does not become chametz, and the matzah is made with the express intent that it be used to fulfill the mitzvah. This latter idea, however, does not appear in any of the early (Tannaitic or Amoraic) layers of the Talmud, but only in the editorial (Stammaitic) layer. This article demonstrates how this notion entered rabbinic literature.[1]
Dr.
Joshua Kulp
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The Torah and Bavli vs. the Prophets and Yerushalmi
Prof.
Jonathan Ben-Dov
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