Scholarship

Avi Garson traces the rise and fall of the classical Sephardic tradition and calls for a renewed return to its fundamental principles.

Yaakov Taubes explores the background to Maimonides’s explanation for how the Mishnah is ordered.

With lively and accessible prose, Tamar Ross clarifies her theology of the revelation at Sinai in contrast to more traditional formulations such as Yoram Hazony's.

David Fried reviews Diana Lobel's Moses and Abraham Maimonides: Encountering the Divine, which argues that the categorization of Moses Maimonides as an Aristotelian philosopher and his son Abraham as a Sufi mystic is an oversimplification.

Marc B. Shapiro reviews a new edited volume by Yoram Hazony, Gil Student, and Alex Sztuden that offers a traditional defense of revelation in light of modern biblical criticism.

In this timely piece, David Fried analyzes Maimonides' explanation of the ma'aseh merkavah in light of the Talmud's strictures on its teaching outlined in Hagigah. Fried's analysis reveals how Maimonides changed course from the Aristotelianism that he posited at other points in his career.

Post-pandemic proposals to omit hazarat ha-shatz on a permanent basis have been soundly rejected by halakhic authorities. Is this due exclusively to halakhic considerations, or are additional factors at play? Yosie Levine contends that Ashkenazic rabbinic opposition to 19th-century attempts to eliminate hazarat ha-shatz may still be shaping halakhic discourse today.

Eliezer Finkelman discusses the meaning of perfect repentance.

Bezalel Naor responds to Bezalel Safran's Straussian reading of the Rambam.

Ariel Krakowski explores the connection between Maimonides and the Stoics.