Tradition Podcast

In TRADITION’s recent Fall 2021 issue we published a wide-ranging review essay, authored by Prof. Jeffrey R. Woolf, surveying the scope and significance of the writings of Rabbi Prof. Yitzhak (Isadore) Twersky zt”l, which were recently collected and published in Hebrew as “Ke-Ma’ayan ha-Mitgabar” (Law and Spirit in Medieval Jewish Thought), edited by Prof. Carmi Horowitz and published by Merkaz Za...

Rav Zalman Nechemiah Goldberg zt”l , who passed away in September 2020 at the age of 89, was a towering rabbinic authority who provided halakhic guidance to Jews throughout the world on a panoply of contemporary issues. He possessed a unique blend of phenomenal erudition and real-world perspicacity. When approached for his expertise on contemporary halakhic questions, such as the difficult 9/11 Ag...

In this episode of the TRADITION Podcast we talk with two contributors to our recent “Rabbi Norman Lamm Memorial Volume” about R. Lamm’s vision for the American rabbinate. R. Lamm served as a prominent pulpit rabbi for over a quarter-century, first in Springfield, MA, and then at Manhattan’s Jewish Center. As Rosh Ha-Yeshiva of Yeshiva University’s Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, he pre...

In this episode of the TRADITION Podcast our editor R. Jeffrey Saks speaks with Rachelle Sprecher Fraenkel, who teaches Talmud and Halakha at Nishmat and Matan in Jerusalem, is a Yoetzet Halacha, and the Director of Matan’s advanced halakha program. Rabbanit Fraenkel’s essay in our “Rabbi Norman Lamm Memorial Volume” explores R. Lamm’s writing, preaching, and teaching on the role of “Family and Mo...

In this episode of the TRADITION Podcast our editor R. Jeffrey Saks speaks with Dr. Erica Brown and Prof. Ari Goldman about their contributions to the “Rabbi Norman Lamm Memorial Volume.” They each wrote about aspects of Rabbi Lamm’s written record as a self-styled “unrepentant darshan” one of the Jewish 20th century’s peerless rhetoricians, who turned the synagogue sermon into an art form and use...

Congregation Rinat Yisrael of Teaneck, NJ, hosted a special Tikkun Leyl Hoshana Rabba remembering the legacy of Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm z”l, and celebrating the publication of TRADITION’s Rabbi Lamm Memorial Volume. Speakers: Rabbi Chaim Strauchler, Rabbi Jeffrey Saks, Yoetzet Halacha Tova Warburg Sinensky, Rabbi Tzvi Sinensky. Order the volume: https://traditiononline.org/rabbi-lamm-memorial   Watc...

In this installment of the TRADITION Podcast we present an audio editor’s column with Rabbi Jeffrey Saks’ essay, “A Man of All Spirits: Excavating the Thought of Rabbi Lamm,” read by the author. This is the introductory essay in TRADITION’s recently released “Rabbi Norman Lamm Memorial Volume.” This special issue of TRADITION contains 35 chapters by our community’s leading rabbis, educators, and t...

“It is very unusual for a scholar to identify a subject of manifestly great importance that has barely been addressed, but Eric Lawee’s recently published Rashi’s Commentary on the Torah: Canonization and Resistance in the Reception of a Jewish Classic (Oxford Univerity Press) has succeeded in doing so” – so writes David Berger, reviewing Lawee’s book in TRADITION’s recent Spring 2021 issue. Eric...

As part of the 2021 convention of TRADITION‘s publisher, the Rabbinical Council of America, Rabbanit Chana Henkin spoke about the legacy of her late husband, R. Yehuda Herzl Henkin zt”l, exploring the influences that helped him develop into a unique posek and thinker. We are grateful to the RCA for allowing us to share this recording with TRADITION‘s followers. Rabbanit Chana Henkin is the Rosh Mi...

Listen to the recording of the special first Yahrzeit memorial program for TRADITION’s founder Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm zt”l. Introduction by Rabbi Yosie Levine. Lectures by Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, Yoetzet Tova Warburg Sinensky, and Rabbi Ari Lamm. Closing Remarks by Rabbi Ari Berman. (May 19, 2021) Presented by Yeshiva University, The Lamm Heritage Archives, Rabbinical Council of America, Orthodox U...

Following his passing last November, TraditionOnline inaugurated The Rabbi Sacks Bookshelves Project , in tribute to R. Jonathan Sacks’ impact on the spiritual and intellectual life of our community, and examining aspects of his thought and teaching. Reading R. Sacks’  many books  and  listening to his lectures , one is not just impressed by his original insights and striking formulations, but als...

The most recent issue of TRADITION (Winter 2021) contains “A Halakhic Framework for Decision-Making in Acute Critical Illness” by Judah Goldberg. The article explores the array of complicated decision making in difficult, traumatic times, including end-of-life decision making. This framework will help guide the interactions between physicians, clergy, and the acutely ill patient and his or her fam...

In 1953, Yale theologian H. Richard Niebuhr was asked, “To what extent did religious and specifically Christian convictions influence the development of American democracy; and, to what extent can that democracy be maintained in America, or be reproduced elsewhere, without the aid of such convictions?” In response, Niebuhr put forward a theory of America as a “covenantal community” – a model built...

The arrival of a COVID-19 vaccine is a long-awaited and blessed development that requires our gratitude to God, and the scientists through whom His work is done, for providing humanity the means to eradicate the pandemic and its deadly effects. In this podcast, R. Yona Reiss explains that vaccination constitutes a mitzva requirement based on the imperative of “guarding our lives” and preventing ha...

TRADITION’s recent Fall 2020 issue was largely dedicated to a symposium on Mahashevet Yisrael – the educational challenges and goals of Jewish thought, ably guest edited by Mali Brofsky. Among the 11 essays in the symposium, we published a piece by R. Dov Singer, “ Service of God as a Unique Discipline .” Rav Dov is the Rosh Yeshiva of the Makor Chaim high school in Gush Etzion and the founder of...

TRADITION joins with the Jewish world, and with lovers of wisdom everywhere, in mourning the untimely loss of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, who passed away on Shabbat. Rabbi Sacks served as the Chief Rabbi of United Hebrew Congregations of the British Commonwealth from 1991 to 2013, and was made a Life Peer in House of Lords in 2009. For many worldwide, his influence was felt through his dozens of bo...

The story of Akedat Yitzhak, the binding of Isaac (Gen. 22), read in synagogues this Shabbat, has posed significant philosophical challenges throughout the history of Jewish and religious thought. In his newest book, “ Unbinding Isaac: The Significance of the Akedah for Modern Jewish Thought ” (JPS), Aaron Koller leads his readers on a trek of discovery into this most challenging biblical story —...

TRADITION’s  recent Fall 2020 issue features a fascinating symposium on “ Jewish Thought in the Contemporary World: Educational Challenges and Goals ,” guest edited by Mrs. Mali Brofsky who writes by way of introduction: “Meaning and complexity are the two essential values that lie at the heart of learning Jewish thought. These two concepts are central to an individual’s living a purposeful life,...

In TRADITION’s Summer 2020 issue we deviated from our normal habit and published a review of a work of fiction – Yaakov Z. Mayer’s new Hebrew novel, “Nehemiah” (Yediot Sefarim), reviewed for us by Dr. Shlomo Tikochinski ( read it here ). Mayer is a writer in the Israeli popular press, an academic, and a novelist. In his academic work he focusses on the printing of the Talmud, the history of Hebrew...

For over a year TraditionOnline has been featuring a weekly column exploring different cultural treasures which have the potential to contribute to the spiritual life and mind. “The BEST” (whose title is drawn from Matthew Arnold’s well-known line about  reading “the best that has been thought and said” as an antidote to the anarchy of materialism, industrialism and individualistic self-interest)...

The central feature of Professor Haym Soloveitchik’s “Rupture and Reconstruction: The Transformation of Contemporary Orthodoxy” (TRADITION, Summer 1994) was its focus on trends in Ashkenazic Orthodoxy of the twentieth century. Given Soloveitchik’s areas of scholarly focus, and the community he was describing, it could hardly have been otherwise. Our recent symposium on the twenty-fifth anniversary...

In this inaugural episode of “Debates L’Shem Shomayim” we explore the complexities around the annexation of territories in Judea and Samaria – a matter being hotly debated in Israel, Washington, and around the world.  Arguing against annexation: Dr. Yoel Finkelman (National Library of Israel) Arguing in support: Prof. Jeffrey Woolf (Bar-Ilan University) Moderator: Mrs. Mali Brofsky, MSW  This seri...

In TRADITION’s recent Spring 2020 issue we published an essay by Dr. Yaakov S. Weinstein, a physicist by profession and a new writer to our pages. His essay “Four Facets of the Love of God” explores themes in Ahavat Hashem, drawing on C.S. Lewis’ important work “The Four Loves,” which is a rich portrayal of the multiple types of human and divine love. Lewis, perhaps most well-known for his “Chroni...

As our readers will have by now heard, during these dark days of COVID, Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm zt”l has passed away at the age of 92. In 1987, when I entered Yeshiva University as a freshman, R. Lamm had already been president for over a decade, and – timed with YU’s centenary, he had embarked on conducting a conversation within the university and the larger American Modern Orthodox community, orga...

AUDIO EDITOR’S NOTE: Issachar in Lockdown This is an Audio Editor’s Note from TRADITION’s newly released Spring 2020 issue — Rabbi Jeffrey Saks reads his essay “Issachar  in Lockdown.” In this column, our editor muses on the state of Jewish life and learning during this time of coronavirus. He asks how we might evaluate ourselves in lockdown as individuals and as a community? Even those of us hous...