Latest Essays

Thirty nine forms of melacha “work” are forbidden on Shabbat. Does the number drive the list?

“See, YHWH has called by name Bezalel, the son of Uri.” (Exodus 35:30) Who is Bezalel and why is he chosen as the architect and artisan of the Tabernacle?

Does Abraham really need to be historical in order to claim an important role in Jewish religious consciousness? Should the Torah be seen as a historical account reported by God, or simply as the story of God?

And Moses’ decision to break the tablets

Babies, birds, angels, even Torah scholars, tradition has interpreted cherubs in various ways, but what was their function on the ark?

The Urim veTumim have baffled traditional commentators through the ages and only more recently has modern scholarship shed partial light on what they were.

A 2000-year-old question on how to read a single word in the Torah has generated different opinions on how a custodian for someone’s animal should go about proving that the animal was killed by a beast and not stolen.

The Torah states “do not cook a kid in its mother's milk.” What does this phrase mean, and how did it develop into the prohibition of mixing meat and milk?

A surprising look at Shabbat in the Second Temple period.

Four accounts of revelation and laws, but one religion

Na’aseh Ve-Nishma

When God reveals the name YHWH to Moses in Exodus, he says that not even the patriarchs knew this name, yet they all use it in Genesis. Critical scholarship’s solution to this problem led to one of the most important academic innovations in biblical studies in the last three hundred years: the Documentary Hypothesis.

Charting the historical development of Shabbat, and appreciating the biblical reasons for its observance.

Does the Song of the Sea in Exodus 15 tell a different story about an escape from the Egyptians than the account of the splitting of the sea in Exodus 14?

From Judges to Tefillin, the Hagaddah to Kol Nidrei – Jewish Tradition has preserved or harmonized different opinions: An idea reflected in Torah as understood by the Documentary Hypothesis

Splitting the Sea, Manna from Heaven, and defeating Amalek.

A cornerstone of the Jewish luni-solar calendar or a commandment about the order of months?

A literary strategy used by pre-modern editors and authors that works in a similar way to the classic cinematographic catch-phrase, “Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch.” (With an addendum by Prof. Marc Brettler)

The details of Moses birth story do not entirely cohere. By examining the midrash, and sifting through layers of the Torah text itself, we uncover a series of problems and solutions in the story which help to elucidate the way the text and its traditions evolved over time.

Does the Torah end with Deuteronomy or Joshua? The answer depends on whether we view the Torah as a law collection or as a narrative about a promise fulfilled.

Historical-critical and text-critical approaches to the Torah have a strong precedent in classical rabbinic literature. Yet Orthodox Jewish communities today pointedly resist these methods. It is time that critical thinking about the Torah be embraced within our educational systems.