Most of the medieval Christian antisemitic tropes, such as Jews as ritual murderers and cash-grubbing moneylenders, are hauntingly familiar. Hideous depictions associated Jews with Satan. Christians ascribed to Jews deformed bodily characteristics including pointed noses, horns, and hemorrhoids.[1] [https://www.thelehrhaus.com/scholarship/the-myth-of-jewish-male-menstruation/#_edn1] But one such bodily

The story of masculinity, heroism, and Hanukkah has been told countless times in the past century. Depending on who is talking, it is variously recounted to champion a return to pre-rabbinic biblical values (think David Ben Gurion) or, more recently, as a call to recover a “softer” rabbinic model of

This year’s confluence of Passover and a pandemic has spurred countless halakhic questions. Among them: given that synagogue services are impermissible, should one praying individually still read Shir ha-Shirim on Shabbat Hol ha-Moed? On one level, this can be analyzed as a strict halakhic matter. The question hinges on

Our confrontation with tragic realities sometimes provides a new lens through which to view familiar categories. This year, our experience of the novel coronavirus offers us new insight into the Ten Plagues, which are central to the coming holiday of Passover. Above all, it is the most lethal of the

Note: This article was subsequently republished in the book Esther in America [https://korenpub.com/products/esther-in-america]. Megillat Esther tells us precious little about Esther’s inner world. We know about her early life: the death of her parents, her maturation in Mordecai’s house, and how she is taken

I regularly remind my talmidim and talmidot that learning, for yeshivah day school students, often requires unlearning what we first encountered while less mature. While I most commonly urge this unlearning regarding Tanakh and midrashim (think Vashti’s tail), for yeshivah students, this reminder is particularly apt in regard to

The problem is familiar enough: why does the Haggadah feature mikra bikkurim, the grateful farmer’s declaration, as the textual basis for analyzing the miracles of the Exodus, instead of the original story in Parshat Bo? Many of the classic solutions are widely known.[1] [https://www.thelehrhaus.com/timely-thoughts/

Watching the tempestuous political debates in the Jewish community mirror the fevered pitch of pre-election discourse throughout the United States, it occurs to me just how appropriate it is that Yitzhak Rabin’s 25th yahrtzeit falls out during these heady times. Today’s environment is not dissimilar to the tenor

The identity of the person who walks the goat to Azazel is, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, a riddle wrapped in mystery. The Torah puzzlingly (Vayikra 16:21) calls him an ish itti, literally a "man of time." Unsurprisingly, adopting a variety of Talmudic and midrashic views, the classical exegetes struggled

David Moss’ classic Hagadah features a folio adorned with a series of mirrors interspersed among various historical Jewish personalities, drawn from different cultures and eras. The borders of the page are inscribed with the Seder’s classic injunction that “in every generation, each individual is obligated to view himself as

Another Purim piece [https://goo.gl/NxQuPU], this time placing the midrashic and feminist readings of Vashti's character alongside one another.

Newest piece [https://www.thelehrhaus.com/scholarship/unorthodox-how-megillat-esther-justifies-the-holiday-of-purim/?utm_source=tzvi&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=february25_sinensky&utm_content=link] is up on the Lehrhaus!

My newest piece [https://goo.gl/aWURhc]: How Sefer Haggai is the source for seeing Elul as a time of repentance, and what this means for the pivotal month to come.

Published this piece [https://goo.gl/874kDx] in honor of Tu be-Av this past Thursday. Better posted here late than never :-)

First piece in the Jewish Link, ahead of Tisha B'Av. A meaningful and safe fast to all. https://www.jewishlinknj.com/features/26145-tisha-b-av-lessons-from-maker-ed

This was the parsha mini-shiur I taught to Kohelet's high school students this morning, the last day of classes. As you can tell throughout and especially at the end of the shiur, I will miss them tremendously and the feelings are mutual... https://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/902310/

I read with interest Dr. Lawrence Kaplan’s insightful essay [https://www.thelehrhaus.com/scholarship/moses-mendelssohn-and-the-mimetic-society-then-and-now/] concerning the key role oral instruction plays in the thought of Moses Mendelssohn. I appreciate his complimentary words regarding my earlier piece [https://www.thelehrhaus.com/commentary/resurrecting-moses-mendelssohn/] concerning Mendelssohn’s notion of the

More highlights from my current series on Torah study [http://etzion.org.il/en/shiur-10-experiential-dimension-torah-study] at Yeshivat Har Etzion's Virtual Beit Midrash: As captured by Rambam (Hilkhot Yesodei Ha-Torah 2:1-2) and many others, the dialectic between reverence and enjoyment animates the life of the servant of God generally. As

https://www.thelehrhaus.com/commentary/dr-norman-lamms-trailblazing-talmudic-methodology/ Two trends are particularly prominent in contemporary Modern Orthodox Torah study. First, the last two decades have seen a rise in the popularity of non-halakhic spiritual texts, particularly hasidut. The popularity of Netivot Shalom, Sfat Emet, the Piazescner, and Rav Shagar, to name just

Very much enjoying working on my current VBM series on Torah study. I particularly enjoyed writing the section below, in which I discuss Talmud Torah as a form of self-actualization. http://etzion.org.il/en/shiur-04-purpose-talmud-torah-part-2 A final perspective on the nature of talmud Torah emerges from a consideration of

Originally published at The Lehrhaus. [http://www.thelehrhaus.com/commentary-short-articles/2017/10/15/i40avtgpezt3gy0ckgo7inowqas90p?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=shlom_oct16&utm_content=link] As chronicled in Robert Putnam’s 2000 classic book, Bowling Alone, loneliness is one of the vexing challenges of modern life. The advent

I still remember the Friday night of December 27, 2002. I spent that year back at Yeshivat Har Etzion, and I was almost entirely immersed in the Israeli culture. I had Israeli roommates, Israeli chavrutot and attended Israeli shiurim. And so it came as no surprise that my roommates and

The Jewish blessing LeChaim, to life, represents a bedrock principle of Judaism. And not just because Sholom Aleichem declared as much in Fiddler on the Roof. This is particularly true on Yom Kippur, an anxious day on which we plead with Hashem to extend our lives through the coming year.