The Jewish Thought Magazine of the Yeshiva University Student Body
In the newly published Toras HoRav volume titled Halakhic Morality, Rabbi Soloveitchik distinguishes between two aspects of Jewish life: a derekh ha-hayyim and signon ha-hayyim. The derekh ha-hayyim, way of life, is universal. As...
Hassidism was founded in the eighteenth century by Rabbi Yisrael ben Eliezer of Medzhibozh - better known as the Ba’al Shem Tov, or “Besht” - in the wake of the Khmelnitsky Massacres and Sabbateanism....
The history of mankind is made up of our stories. Jewish history is no exception; our collective narrative is comprised of a great meddling of stories, from the histories of Philo of Alexandria to...
The word “nature” is rich with differing meanings. When a chemist describes something as “natural,” a purveyor of organic food products might disagree[i]. One person’s proclivity in any number of realms might be described...
R. Simeon b. Eleazar testified on the authority of R. Simeon b. Hanina: He who reads a verse at its proper time brings good to the world, as it is written, “And a word spoken...
The fourth Mishnah in the second chapter of Pirkei Avot teaches “al tifrosh min ha-tzibbur— do not separate from the community.” Community is an integral aspect of Jewish practice and we have mitzvot such...
Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has given us the Torah of truth, planting everlasting life in our midst. Blessed are You, Giver of the Torah. -Blessing after Torah...
We express gratitude before you, God, our God and the God of our fathers, that you have established our portion with those who dwell in the beit midrash, and have not established our portion...
We have commenced! Well, some of us have anyways. The term ‘commencement’ is, at face value, counter-intuitive. To commence is to begin something new. It is the start of some fresh undertaking. In truth...
The first documented Jewish child to grapple with the nature of freedom did not do so through the luxuries of the “question-and-answer” style that typify the Seder night. The child, Moshe, is born into...
No longer will we stand for rumination, meditation, cogitation, and analysis! No longer will we bother with comparisons, contrasts, contradistinctions, and counterfactuals! Henceforth K’ol ha-Mevaser thumbs its nose at the askers of questions, and...
Nearly 2,000 years after the destruction of the second Temple, though the Jewish people are now once again sovereign in the Land of Israel, we still await the coming of Mashiah and the final...
Previous issues of Kol Hamevaser are filled with passionate articles discussing Israel advocacy, human rights abuses in Israel, issues of gerut in Israel and the integration of technology and halakhah in Israeli society. In...
Music is a ubiquitous human experience. In the modern world especially, we are inundated with an endless flow of sounds ranging from the simplistic to the intricate, which elicit a full spectrum of emotional...
