New scholarship captures the fierce but failed attempt to dethrone Judaism’s preeminent biblical commentator
How the great kabbalist Isaac Luria changed the perception of the world without changing the world itself
In this week’s ‘Daf Yomi,’ how ancient Talmudic rabbis recreated and understood the lost religious culture of the First Temple
No, really: It’s right there in the Talmud
A descendant of the New York School brings cantorial poetics to his new collection, ‘In Memory of an Angel’
Sure, we all have our opinions about the Golden State forward’s seemingly dirty kick. But maybe this decision should come from a higher source.
Do today’s Seders exist to remember the past, or did past events occur so that they could be remembered later?
This week, Talmudic rabbis seek righteousness in the Bible’s tales of vice, weakness, and human frailty
This week, deduction and analogy propel the Talmud from the mundane to the miraculous
Sages in a superstitious age accepted the existence of invisible devils and the use of magic to render them visible
Our book critic dives into Daf Yomi’s daily regimen expecting a law code, but instead finds a chain of questions
Our Comment of the Week
Rabbinical reasoning behind our pre-Passover search for hametz leads Jews through a theological maze, but everything is illuminated at the end
Comment of the Week
Scholar Adin Steinsaltz discusses his recently completed edition of the Talmud, why the Internet is better than TV, and the prospect of the Lubavitcher Rebbe and Elvis playing cards together
In this week’s “Tell Me,” Tablet Magazine’s illustrated question-and-answer column, we reconstruct a reader’s morning repast—and offer commentary on the proceedings
Moses, the hero of this week’s parasha, had his own code of silence. Like every self-respecting rapper, he understood that squealing signals a breakdown of social cohesion.
Old School in the New World