Summer Camps and the Nine Days by Nathaniel Helfgot

As the summer months progress and we are in the thick of the Nine Days, I find myself returning to ponder the dissonance that sometimes lurks below the surface of the written guidelines of the halakhic texts and how we live life in the real social constructs that we experience. I refer specifically to the entire rubric of [...]

Rabbi Yehuda Amital zt”l: Reflections by Nathaniel Helfgot, Yehudah Mirsky, Alex Israel, Yair Kahn, and Reuven Ziegler

To read two essays of Rav Amital’s published in Tradition, click here.  Rav Amital and the Complexity of Life and Judaism By Nathaniel Helfgot  The passing of Moreinu Verabeinu Rav Yehuda Amital zt”l has deeply affected us all who were his direct or indirect students. It is difficult to write a comprehensive retrospective of such a [...]

In Memory of Professor Moshe Greenberg by Nathaniel Helfgot

As a committed student of Tanakh as well as chair of the Tanakh and Jewish Thought Departments at YCT Rabbinical School,  I would be remiss if I did not take note of the death last week of one of the leading Jewish scholars of Bible, as well as a wonderful human being, Prof. Moshe Greenberg [...]

Focusing on Function: Women’s Leadership Roles by Nathaniel Helfgot

The following is an edited version of my initial remarks at a panel on Women’s Leadership Roles that was held on the first day of the RCA convention on Sunday, April 25, 2010. The panel consisted of Rabbi Michael Broyde, Rabbi Gidon Rothstein, Dr. Deena Zimmerman and myself. It was conceived and moderated by Rabbi [...]

Our Writers Respond: Women, Communal Leadership, and Balancing Halakhic Values by Nathaniel Helfgot

I would like to commend my colleagues and friends, Rabbis Brody, Klapper (here and here) and Rothstein (here and here) for their stimulating and substantive posts in the last few weeks, partially in reaction to my original post on two halakhic issues that have been raised regarding the issue of expanding women’s roles in communal [...]

Women, Communal Leadership, and Modern Orthodoxy by Nathaniel Helfgot

I. During the last half century the movement towards greater public, educational, economic, and political roles for women in general society has slowly  affected the reality of Jewish and more specifically, for our purposes, Orthodox society. This has created a sea change in the role of women in the Orthodox and especially Modern-Orthodox society. The [...]

The Bones of Yosef by Nathaniel Helfgot

The Torah, in an apparent aside at the beginning of Parashat Beshallah (Ch. 13:19), informs us that as the Israelites were leaving Egypt, Moses recovered the bones of Joseph to fulfill the request/oath that Joseph had made the people swear to him long ago that when the redemption would come they would take his bones [...]

When was the Mitzvah of Candle Lighting Declared? by Nathaniel Helfgot

When was the Mitzvah of Hadlakot Nerot Declared?  By Nathaniel Helfgot R. Isaac Judah Trunk of Kutno (1879-1939),1 in his work Hasdei Avot  #17,2 proffers  a fascinating theory  in relation to the genesis of the lighting of Chanukah candles. He begins by noting that in the famous Talmudic discussion about the origin of Chanukah the [...]

The Book, the Prayer, and the Heart in Tension

The Book, the Prayer, and the Heart in Tension by Nathaniel Helfgot It has become a widespread phenomenon in many Modern-Orthodox asheknazi kehillot (as well as a number of haredi ones as well) to experience Tisha Be-Av morning (and its mourning) in a different fashion than had been practiced for decades and centuries.  I refer [...]

Final Exam in Jewish Philosophy of Dr. Joseph Soloveitchik, 1936

by Nathaniel Helfgot An interesting detail of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik zt”l’s biography, not widely known or discussed (for example, it is not mentioned in the important biographical essay on the Rav that opens Rabbi Aaron Rakaffet’s two volume  The Rav: The World of R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik nor in the important work of my [...]

Next Page »