Articles

We often face dilemmas that seem to have no good way out. We feel trapped and endangered. The Midrash teaches us to think again, to think beyond, to imagine what now seems impossible.

In The Heart of the Five Megillot, Rabbi Hayyim Angel draws on classical rabbinic interpretation, literary analysis, and contemporary scholarship to illuminate the enduring power of Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther. If you are a member of the Institute and receive Conversations, you should have received Rabbi Hayyim Angel's book, The Megillot Companion (Conversations 47).

These articles by Rabbi Hayyim Angel explore the teachings of Kohelet. They originally appeared in issue 47 of Conversations, the journal of the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals.

An online commemorative lecture by Anastatios Karababas. Program includes a traditional ‘Hashkavanah’ Memorial prayer for the Sephardic Community of Rhodes, Cos, and throughout Greece and the Balkans during the Holocaust

Ordinarily, a title claiming that a phenomenon is transformative sounds hyperbolic. In the case of this fascinating study by Bar-Ilan University professor Adam Ferziger, however, the claim is entirely justified.

Rabbi Hayyim Angel will be giving various shiurim/lectures during the coming weeks, including some accessible via Zoom.

Haredi religious leaders in Israel believe that yeshiva students should be exempt from military service. Rabbi Alan Yuter discusses the halakhic--and practical--rejections to that approach.

Judaism does not ask us to abandon our particular commitments in the name of a universal humanity. Rather, it teaches us to see that the God who calls us into covenant is also the creator of those who stand outside that covenant.

In his work, Iyyunim BeParashot HaShavua (series 1, 2002), Rabbi Elhanan Samet presents a meaningful analysis of a debate between Rabbi Yitzhak Arama (Spain, 1420-1494) and Rabbi Yitzhak Abarbanel (Spain, Italy 1437-1508). The following essay is based on Rabbi Samet’s study.