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Mishnah & Talmud


Rejoice When Your Enemy Falters? Rejoice When Your Enemy Falters?
Friday, March 22, 2013 by Shlomo M. Brody | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Proverbs says, "When your enemy falters do not rejoice and when he stumbles do not feel glee."  Does that apply even if your enemy is really, really evil? 
A Pillar with a Past A Pillar with a Past
Tuesday, January 8, 2013 by Lawrence Grossman | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Gil S. Perl’s The Pillar of Volozhin sheds light on the Netziv, one of Lithuanian Jewry's greatest leaders, whose own intellectual development is reflected throughout the yeshiva world today.
Clothes Make the Man Clothes Make the Man
Friday, December 7, 2012 by Chaim Saiman | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

The recent daf yomi Shabbat 63 appears to present just the technicalities of what can and cannot be transported on Shabbat.  Yet it is simultaneously an exploration of war, peace, and the nature of manhood.
The Brain Death Wars The Brain Death Wars
Thursday, September 13, 2012 by Shlomo Zuckier | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

When does a human life end? A 2010 monograph by a rabbinic body, a recent book by an independent scholar, and a forthcoming book by another rabbinic organization are the most recent entries in what is among the most discussed halakhic debates of recent times.
Yeshiva Revolution Yeshiva Revolution
Friday, September 7, 2012 by Yoel Finkelman | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Shaul Stampfer, one of Israel's foremost experts on Eastern European Jewry, is the most unlikely of iconoclasts.  A thin, quiet, unassuming man, he gives the impression that he would have been happy as a simple melamed (elementary school teacher) in the shtetls he describes.
Sifting the Cairo Genizah Sifting the Cairo Genizah
Friday, April 1, 2011 by Lawrence Grossman | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Everyone knows about the Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered over 60 years ago, and about the new light they shed on the sectarian Judaism of late antiquity, the beginnings of rabbinic Judaism, and possibly the prehistory of Christianity. Fifty years before that, the Cairo Genizah similarly revolutionized the picture of the Jewish Middle Ages.
Editors' Picks
Digitalmud Elli Fischer, Shai Secunda, Jewish Review of Books. Attempts to clarify the Talmud have always provoked new waves of commentary and dispute. Rashi's monumental running commentary opened the door for more sophisticated analysis. What might the ArtScroll app provoke?
Hope Springs Talmudic Shai Secunda, Jewish Week. Unfolding beyond the crush of defeat, the Talmud's vigorous spirit of inquiry represents a great, resilient optimism.