Stories from Jewish History

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Holiday Editions

Tishrei 5785: The Lives and Afterlives of U-Netaneh Tokef
❤️‍🔥 The haunting Rosh Hashana piyut U-Netaneh Tokef has a contested backstory, but the complex realities behind its many lives and afterlives tells…
 • Dr. Tamar Ron Marvin
Elul 5784: Yarchei Kallah
🌘Beginning in the Talmudic period, the month of Elul, along with the month of Adar, was a time when students in Bavel would gather to learn Torah—a…
 • Dr. Tamar Ron Marvin
Av 5784: Rebuilding Jerusalem - The Emblematic Case of the Ramban Synagogue
🕍 What we know—and don't know—about the famously renewed synagogue in the Jewish Quarter of that Old City, and what it tells us about rebuilding in the…
 • Dr. Tamar Ron Marvin
Tamuz 5784: What We've Lost—and What We've Gained
🔥 An exploration of how the period of mourning beginning in Tamuz marks both destruction and renewal, exile and redemption, through the lens of our…
 • Dr. Tamar Ron Marvin
Sivan 5784: The Origins of Tikkun Leil Shavuot
🌃 The Kabbalistic practice of staying awake late into the night of the holiday of Shavuot and studying Torah has its roots in the Zohar, but was…
 • Dr. Tamar Ron Marvin
Iyar 5784: Rabbi Meir Baal ha-Nes
🕯️ The month of Iyar is dotted with sorrow and celebration, which come together in Rabbi Meir Baal ha-Nes, whose yahrtzeit falls on Pesach Sheni and is…
 • Dr. Tamar Ron Marvin
Nisan 5784: The Mysterious Fifth Cup
🍷 Is one actually supposed to pour, or even drink, a fifth cup of wine at the Pesach seder? What does the Talmud actually say, and what about Eliyahu…
 • Dr. Tamar Ron Marvin
Adar II 5784: Targum Rishon and Targum Sheni to Megillat Esther
🎭 Two expansive Aramaic translations of the Scroll of Esther give us a window into how ancient and medieval audiences understood the core text of the…
 • Dr. Tamar Ron Marvin
Adar I 5784: Lost Books of the Bible
❓A relatively large number of books are mentioned in Tanach that have not come down to us. What can we ascertain about their contents and whereabouts?
 • Dr. Tamar Ron Marvin
Shevat 5784: On the Supposedly Sabbatean Origins of the Tu bi-Shevat Seder
🌱 The practices surrounding Tu bi-Shevat, the new year of the trees, go back to Geonic times and pick up Kabbalistic meaning before a brief…
 • Dr. Tamar Ron Marvin
Tevet 5784: Of Solstice and Equinox and Danger
❄️ A close look at Rishonim on Tekufat Tevet and the other seasons, including the mysterious custom of avoiding drinking water "exposed" to the solstice…
 • Dr. Tamar Ron Marvin
Kislev 5784: The Maharal's Ner Mitzvah
🕯️ As part of his unique project, the Maharal of Prague wrote a Chanuka sefer called Ner Mitzvah. It's a gateway into his broader thought and method…
 • Dr. Tamar Ron Marvin
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