High Holidays
And some appropriate recommendations.
Solomon the Babylonian’s plea for justice.
Mozart and the Mahzor.
What happens when an Ashkenazi rabbi leads a Sephardi synagogue during the Days of Awe? A profound encounter with new moods in Jewish life.
Literalism or literary style?
“Just as He is compassionate and merciful, so too should you be compassionate and merciful.”
When the warrior and poet chose not to kill his sworn enemy.
Apart from Kol Nidrei, no High Holy Day prayer is better known than Un’taneh Tokef. But there’s a puzzle at its heart.
God’s first creative proclamation was “Let there be light,” so it might seem that the day came first. But then why does the Bible say that “it was evening and it was morning?”
Rabbis are sending the message that religion is simply a lens for politics.
Heshvan is the bitterest month.
On the overuse of ḥag same’aḥ and the redundancy of gut yuntif.
This week, we dig through the archives to bring you excerpts from our best conversations on faith, mortality, tradition, obligation, and sin.
The product of a millennium of tension between law and folk tradition.