Articles

When in Rome Defeated on the battlefield, the rabbis found another way to fight back – using midrash to absorb, subvert, and ultimately out-argue the most powerful empire in the world By Alex Stein

Parashat Korach: Gifts and Corruption The priesthood was given as a gift – an honor requiring no payment. But when gifts became livelihoods, corruption followed. From ancient priestly hides to modern campaign contributions, exploring how gifts transform from blessings into bribes By Lior Tal Sadeh

The Moral of the Story How the printing press turned Hebrew morality tales into a Jewish cultural phenomenon – and what they reveal about virtue, vice, and collective memory By Gilad Halpern

The Other Side of Tchernichovsky He’s one of the giants of Hebrew poetry, but behind the verse was a military doctor, a man rejected from jobs in Israel for having a gentile wife, and a poet who spent his final days in a Greek Orthodox monastery. Here are ten things you probably didn’t know about Shaul Tchernichovsky By BAC Staff

Parashat Shelach: The Wood Gatherer Setting an Example While the Israelites are in the desert, an anonymous man caught gathering wood on the Sabbath is summarily condemned to death by God. Ostensibly a sinner, could he have acted for the sake of Heaven? By Lior Tal Sadeh

Same Words, Different Worlds Jews and Christians share many of the same biblical texts, yet often find radically different meanings within them. Biblical scholar Marc Zvi Brettler explores how centuries of interpretation shaped those divergent readings – and what each tradition can learn from the other By Alex Stein

Parashat Behaalotecha: Leadership as Partnership When the people of Israel voice their complaints, however understandable, they raise God's ire. His overreaction is owing, perhaps, to different interpretations of the relationship between leaders and their flock By Lior Tal Sadeh

Parashat Naso: About the Monk Is the nazarite holy or a sinner? One view sees spiritual elevation in voluntary restriction. The other sees arrogance in rejecting permitted pleasures. Two fundamentally different worldviews about material life and spiritual growth By Lior Tal Sadeh

Parashat Bamidbar: Evil from Above When God appointed the Levites to serve the Tabernacle, a hidden message was passed on: No man is made an officer below unless he is made wicked above. Power corrupts – which is why we need checks and balances By Lior Tal Sadeh

Ruth, Revisited For Shavuot: ten facts you might not know about the Book of Ruth, the biblical text dominated by women By Dudu Cohen

Who’s Afraid of Talmudic Women? In the lecture series “Not Only Bruriah,” Prof. Ruhama Weiss revisits Talmudic women pushed to the margins, uncovering the strategies each developed to survive a male-dominated world By BAC Staff

The Road to the Holy City For medieval pilgrims, Jerusalem was the center of the world – radiant, sacred, and longed for. What they actually found was something else. Dr. Eyal Davidson explores the travel diaries of the Holy Land By Alex Stein

God Takes the First Step For most Israelis, God is distant, tribal, and political. Abraham Joshua Heschel proposed something radically different: a God who genuinely cares about humanity – and who takes the first step toward it By Alex Stein

Parashat Behar: The Power of Seven Seven days, seven years, seven verses. Judaism’s obsession with the number seven reveals a brilliant insight into life’s natural rhythm. From work-life balance to shmita, exploring what it means to let go By Lior Tal Sadeh

The Shulchan Aruch of Jewish Ideas Most Jews have been holding it ever since childhood, but it doesn’t receive the attention it deserves. A fresh look at the siddur – and why it may be the most important Jewish text of all By Alex Stein