Tradition Podcast

In this episode of our podcast, Tzvi Sinensky,  co-editor of TRADITION ’s special issue on the intellectual legacy of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, speaks with author Alex Israel about his essay in the volume, “ Not by Might: Aversion to Power in Rabbi Sacks’ Writings .” They begin with Rabbi Sacks’ 2016 debate with Rabbi Shlomo Riskin on the pages of The Jewish Review of Books about Judaism’s complicated...

Listen to the recording of our online event marking the publication of TRADITION ‘s special volume, published in partnership with the Rabbi Sacks Legacy, exploring the intellectual legacy of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks z”l (November 2, 2025). Host: Jeffrey Saks, with greetings from Menachem Penner and Gila Sacks. Editors Samuel Lebens and Tzvi Sinensky in conversation with authors Dov Lerner, Raphael Zar...

December 16th will mark the 250th birthday of the renowned English novelist Jane Austen, and “Janeites” (as her fans call themselves) are aflutter worldwide. In this episode of the TRADITION Podcast Mali Brofsky chats with Yaffa Aranoff about her recent essay “ The Perils of Gentle Selfishness: Jane Austen’s Emma and Halakhic Morality ,” TRADITION 57:1 (Winter 2025). Brofsky and Aranoff are both a...

For many mothers, especially literary-minded ones, raising young children may feel like an intellectual regression. In this episode of the TRADITION Podcast, Ilana Kurshan and Sarah Rindner Blum discuss how the time spent reading books with our children can also yield profound intellectual and spiritual insights, not to mention deeper and more enjoyable relationships. Kurshan’s new book, Children...

In this episode of the Tradition Podcast we update our listeners on some happenings over on our website, TraditionOnline.org. Check out the Tradition Summer Book Endorsements : Our yearly tradition of turning to our esteemed editorial board for endorsements for summer reading. Some may be amused to think of a seaside read with the 29 tomes our team chose, but that’s what you get from TRADITION’s t...

This episode of the Tradition Podcast features an engaging conversation about current scholarship on Maimonides—the “Great Eagle.” TRADITION ’s Winter 2025 issue presented a review essay by Marc Herman on Prof. Mordechai Akiva Friedman’s Ha-Rambam u-Genizat Kahir [Maimonides and the Cairo Geniza] (Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities), and Rabbi Dr. Aaron Adler’s Al Kanfei Nesharim: Mehkarim...

TRADITION ’s subscribers have already received our special Spring 2025 issue, containing content commemorating R. Aharon Lichtenstein zt”l , timed with his 10th yahrzeit marked this month. Five years ago we were pleased to publish Rabbanit Tonya Mittelman’s essay, “Women in the Torah World in the Thought of Rabbi Lichtenstein” (Summer 2020). Toni, a distinguished educator, is a daughter of R. Lich...

This episode of the Tradition Podcast is being released on Rosh Hodesh Iyar, the tenth yahrzeit of Rav Aharon Lichtenstein zt”l . In eulogizing his father-in-law, Rabbi Soloveitchik, R. Lichtenstein observed that the Rav was a “ sui generis  sage—he bestrode American Orthodoxy like a colossus, transcending many of its internal fissures.” Such could be said about R. Lichtenstein himself, expanding...

Readers of TraditionOnline.org have been following our week-long series COVID+5,where we’ve been exploring the lasting impact of the pandemic on Jewish education, communal life, and spirituality. Through the insights and reflections of a diverse group of authors we’ve considered how COVID reshaped our synagogues, our communal celebrations, our Yeshiva high school and elementary schools, and our re...

With Passover around the corner our minds are on the many preparations required to join our families around the Seder Table—and yet, who can forget the events of five years ago, when so many of us were isolated, locked-down, sheltering in place during that COVID Pesach of 2020. We’re pleased to share this episode of R. Moshe Kurtz’s “ Shu”t First, Ask Questions Later ” podcast, examining the COVID...

In this episode of the Tradition Podcast, our associate editor Yitzchak Blau interviews author, researcher, and Makor Rishon columnist Yair Sheleg about his recent Hebrew book HaHut HaMeshulash , whose English title might be offered as  The Triple Chord: A Short History of Religious Zionism (Kinneret-Zmora, 2024). Rav Kook believed that Religious Zionism combines elements of religion, nationalism,...

In this episode of the TRADITION Podcast, Mali Brofsky and Mark Smilowitz discuss the central thesis of his recent essay, “Esther and the Spies: A Bible-Based Symbolic Meaning of Walled Cities from the Time of Joshua” which appeared in our Fall 2024 issue and is now open access at TraditonOnline.org. Smilowitz explains how, through an analysis of the textual connection between the walled cities in...

What is the purpose of forgiveness? How necessary is it to maintain working social order – within the body politic or within the smaller circles of religious community or family? Is forgiveness the work and responsibility of the offender (to seek it) or the offended party (to willfully grant it)? We live with these issues daily, often struggling with them in the messiness and complexity of human r...

R. Jonathan Sacks observed that “Jews have survived catastrophe after catastrophe, in a way unparalleled by any other culture. In each case, they did more than survive. Every tragedy in Jewish history was followed by a new wave of creativity.” Even at this early date, we have begun to witness the emergence of creative responses to the events of Simchat Torah 2023 and its long aftermath. That some...

TRADITION ’s Summer 2024 issue contained expanded book review coverage including a review by Menachem Kellner of ArtScroll’s new anthology of Maimonidean philosophy, Kisvei HaRambam: Writings of Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon – The Rambam , translated, annotated, and elucidated by R. Yehuda Meir Keilson. For TraditionOnline Kellner profiled The Guide to the Perplexed: A New Translation , translated and wi...

TRADITION  and the Rabbinical Council of America recently hosted  R. Mosheh Lichtenstein , Rosh Yeshivat Har Etzion, for a conversation revisiting a classic essay from our archives: R. Aharon Lichtenstein  zt”l , “ The Ideology of Hesder ”  ( TRADITION , Fall 1981), using it as a lens to explore contemporary issues in Israeli religious and civilian life and society and the particular challenges of...

TRADITION’s recent Summer 2024 issue contained expanded book review coverage including a review by Yitzhak Blau on Gila Fine’s new “ The Madwoman in the Rabbi’s Attic: Rereading the Women of the Talmud ” (Maggid Books & Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies). Blau says this book carries the rare distinction of breaking new ground in two very different fields: the rabbinic view of women and the to...

It’s become a tradition at TRADITION that each year we turn to our esteemed editorial board for endorsements for summer reading ( read this year’s picks here ). This summer our friend and colleague Mali Brofsky highlighted the work of author Susan Cain, specifically in her recent #1 NY Times Bestseller (and Oprah Book Club selection) “ Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole” (Crown). Ma...

In the area of Jewish medical ethics brain death is the topic which just will not die. With the advent of technologies and medical developments since the mid-twentieth century, questions about the halakhic definition of death have gone from the largely theoretical (and philosophical) to painfully practical for physicians, patients, and their families. Perhaps no other rabbinic figure’s opinion has...

TRADITION’s Winter 2024 issue ( now fully open access ) featured a review by R. Gidon Rothstein of R.  Elisha Aviner’s Hebrew volume, Dor Tahpukhot , whose English title might read A Guide for Parents Whose Children Have Distanced Themselves from Observance (Sifiyat Hava). The book is a practical, philosophical, and halakhic compendium of advice to parents who have struggled to educated their chil...

Subscribers have no doubt begun to dig into TRADITION ’s recent symposium issue on “ The Challenge of Material Success ,” which contains the proceedings of our Tradition Today Summit. We were delighted that one of our contributors, Michael Eisenberg, recently discussed his paper with Yaakov Wolff at the Shtark Tank podcast. The essay and conversation center on Eisenberg’s concept of “Covenantal Ca...

TRADITION’s most recent issue features a special section with short reflective essays on the events of October 7th and the ongoing war in Israel. In this episode, two of those authors meet to discuss the topics touched on in those very personal pieces of writing. Chaim Strauchler engages with Alex S. Ozar, who serves as a rabbi with the Orthodox Union’s JLIC and the Slifka Center for Jewish Life a...

Because TRADITION has always aspired to be more than a quarterly print journal and aims to help shape the conversation and have an impact in our religious community, about five years ago we broadened our reach by expanding our digital-direct offerings, producing shorter-form original content distributed on TraditonOnline.org and over social media—this includes the podcast, expanded coverage of boo...

Yisroel Ben-Porat, a doctoral candidate in early American history at CUNY Graduate Center, is writing a doctorate on the Puritans’ use of the Hebrew Bible as a political text. In TRADITION’s recent Fall 2023 issue he offered a historical investigation of an enigmatic early eighteenth-century figure, “Rabbi” Judah Monis—the first known Jewish-born degree recipient and faculty member at Harvard, whe...

Listen to an introduction to TRADITION’s upcoming Winter 2024 issue, with special content related to the ongoing war in Gaza. Jeffrey Saks observes: The initial shock, horror, and trauma of October 7th have in no way abated and all thoughts remain fixed on the “matzav”—our most abnormal situation. Writing from Israel, our editor considers the challenges for our religious community, the heartening...