Talmudic rabbis disagree on whether the action or the intention of veneration or protest is more important. Plus: Is magic holy?
The holiday frequently brings sermons about Jewish unity, but the story of the destruction of the Temple offers a very different message
How the technique of chancing upon a passage in a Torah scroll or printed Pentateuch came to be a staple of fortune tellers
In the Talmud’s descriptions of self-glorifying and self-enriching Temple priests, lessons for today’s public officials
Daf Yomi: Could Judaism ever go back to now-alien-seeming rituals from before the destruction of the Temple?
Reza Aslan’s powerful new ‘Zealot’ paints a vivid, accessible portrait of Jesus as a Jewish nationalist
A gripping new history of Flavius Josephus portrays a Roman Jewish writer forever wrestling with his identity
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