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Hande Gençünal

Sep 8, 2026, 4:08 AM

A Litany Born From Drought, on Avinu Malkeinu

We repeat this prayer every year, from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur, morning and afternoon. This year, rereading the actual Talmudic story, a detail I'd always skipped past caught my eye. On the twenty-fifth page of tractate Ta'anit, the story...

Sharona Margolin Halickman

Sep 7, 2026, 4:35 AM

The Haftara for the first day of Rosh HaShana (Shmuel I:1:1-2:10) tells the story of Chana and how she yearned for a child. In Shmuel I:1:9-11 we read: Chana stood up after eating in Shilo and after drinking; Eli the...

Sep 1, 2026, 10:18 AM

The Lion: King of the Animal Kingdom, Symbol of Jerusalem and Moshiach’s Tribe

The lion is called the king of the animal kingdom. The Talmud does not dispute this ancient image: “The king of the beasts is the lion” (Chagigah 13b). But Jewish wisdom rarely leaves a royal title unquestioned. Why the lion? If kingship...

Sep 1, 2026, 12:18 AM

What We Share and What We Belong To

A few days ago, I was learning a Talmudic discussion about two kinds of groups: shutafut, a partnership, and tzibbur, a community. At first, it seemed like a technical distinction, different rules about ownership, responsibility and what happens when...

Aug 26, 2026, 4:58 AM

Rabbis Have a Moral Imperative to Use AI

Why Rabbis Should Use AI This High Holy Day Season Every year around this time, rabbis begin disappearing. We disappear into books, notes, drafts, abandoned openings, half-finished sermons, deleted paragraphs, and the peculiar anxiety that comes with knowing that more people...

Hande Gençünal

Aug 23, 2026, 6:44 AM

A Cry or a Laugh on the Real Name of Rosh Hashanah

Preparing for Rosh Hashanah this year, I noticed something, the name I always use isn't one the Torah ever uses. The Torah itself never once calls this day Rosh Hashanah. It only calls it Yom Teruah, the day of...

Aug 20, 2026, 8:44 PM

c. 800 CE. Pirkoi ben Baboi and the Battle over Jewish Tradition

JEWISH MOMENTS IN THE LAND OF ISRAEL c. 800 CE. Pirkoi ben Baboi and the Battle over Jewish Tradition Around the turn of the ninth century, an obscure Babylonian scholar named Pirkoi ben Baboi composed a polemical letter addressed to Jewish communities...

Aug 17, 2026, 6:23 PM

Yes, I would let AI help me write a love letter

(iStock)

AI does not replace my emotions, ideas or judgment or emotion. For me - and for neurodivergent writers - it's a creative tool like any other

Jaclyn S. Clark

Aug 10, 2026, 3:48 PM

I argue with an AI at midnight. It’s the most Jewish thing I do

When AI agents went rogue and followed each other into mischief, they exposed a problem older than computers. An ancient Jewish method could have stopped them

Aug 6, 2026, 6:21 PM

Book review – Foundations and Concepts in Lomdus

For many students of Gemara, there comes a moment when the discussion on the page begins to reveal something deeper. The give-and-take of the Talmudic sugya, the unit of discussion, yields an underlying conceptual architecture in which legal principles,...

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