From the Files of Tzvi Sinensky

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.

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

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

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.

It is one of the most paradoxical moments of the Jewish year. As the sun begins to set and night begins to fall, we declare אור זרוע לצדיק, that light is planted for the righteous. Is this not an outright contradiction? What is more, the imagery of planting seems inapt.

For much of his career, Anthony Flew, born in 1923, was known as a powerful advocate of atheism, arguing that one should presuppose atheism until empirical evidence of a God should surface. As late as 2003, he was one of the signatories of the Third Humanist Manifesto. But in 2004

If you were a Jew living in Mosul a few hundred years ago, you might not have sufficed with just walking to the side of the river, or even tossing some bread into the river. More likely, if you followed common Kurdish custom, you would have rolled up your pants

In the midst of the fifteenth century, Spanish Jewish philosopher R. Yosef Albo formulated an unusual thesis. He claimed that each of the three central blessings of Rosh Hashana’s Musaf prayer, Malchuyot, Zichronot and Shofarot, alludes to a cardinal principle of faith. Although Rambam had boiled down Jewish dogma

http://www.thelehrhaus.com/scholarship/2017/9/13/narcissus-and-the-nazir The legend of Narcissus is well known. As enshrined in the later Roman poet Ovid’s classic retelling, the young man selfishly spurns countless romantic suitors and friends. One such nymph, who had been cruelly rejected, turns heavenward and beseeches the

Looking at the pain and suffering of the people of Houston and other affected communities, I am reminded of Rav Soloveitchik's haunting reading of the story of Iyov in his classic Kol Dodi Dofek. The Rav wonders what lesson Iyov was meant to derive from his suffering. He

It ought to go without saying – but, unfortunately, it no longer does – that the events of this past week have been utterly disgraceful. That the President of the United States would draw an equivalency between Neo-Nazis and their opposition, thereby fraying the bonds that tie together our republic, is as

Tzitzit, Parshat Shelakh teaches, are to be adorned by tekhelet, generally assumed to be a shade of blue. What does tekhelet represent? The Torah seems to be silent on the matter. In seeking to decode its symbolism, it is worth noting that tekhelet makes two other prominent appearances in Chumash:

Most discussions of elu ve'elu divrei Elokim hayyim center on the motto's first two words. What happens when we look more closely at the enigmatic concluding phrase, divrei Elokim hayyim? Find out on The Lehrhaus [http://www.thelehrhaus.com/scholarship/2017/6/9/hillels-living-god]!

Although isru chag, the day following Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot, is widely observed as a moderately joyous day, the halakhic literature is hardly in unanimous support. Rif, Rambam and Rosh fail to codify isru chag. What is more, as noted by Magen Avraham (O.C. 429:8, 494:3; see

As an educator, it is fascinating to consider the following passage in Meiri's introduction to Beit Habechira, where he explains why he found Mishneh Torah inadequate as a restatement of Jewish law: And this is because the natural inclination of a person is to achieve an understanding of

I still remember the Friday night of December 27, 2002. I was scheduled to join my Israeli friends for a Shabbaton at the Otniel Yeshivat Hesder, but for reasons I no longer remember I decided at the last moment to stay back in Alon Shevut. As it turns out, that

Recent years have seen a surge of attention to the question, does Judaism endorse natural law? At first glance, this seems like a purely theoretical question. In fact, however, this issue carries profound implications for the extent to which, over and above Jewish texts, our natural instincts ought frame our

Special thanks to my colleague Dr. Eileen Watts, bibliographer of the Bernard Malamud Society and author of a forthcoming article in the Torah Umada Journal about thematic linkages between Malamud and Rav Soloveitchik, for her insightful comments and edits. All references are to the 2004 edition of The Fixer, published

The application of literary theory to sacred literature, while running the risk of diminishing the elevated stature of sacred texts, also carries the potential to deepen our appreciation for these sources. The upside to bringing literary methodologies to bear is especially evident in regard to piyyutim, religious poetry. In connection

Yesterday afternoon I was honored to read the Haftarah, which records the massive teshuvah movement spearheaded by the heroic young king Yoshiyahu, culminating in a Pesach sacrifice unprecedented "since the days of the Judges" (II Melakhim 23:22). Having recently written studied Shivat Tzion, the Second Temple biblical