Few Jewish doctrines sound as strange to modern ears as that of “matrilineal descent,” the notion that membership in the Jewish people is passed on through the mother even as other specific qualities of Jewishness (like whether one is a Levite) are passed on through the father. In “The Jewish Mother,” Rabbi Meir Soloveichik looks beyond sociological […]

Friedrich Hayek, noted as one of the twentieth century’s greatest defenders of the free market, also made a case for religious traditions. In theory, the energetic, dynamic, disruptive market would seem to be at odds with the restraint, humility, and anti-materialism of revealed religion. Reflecting on Hayek’s praise for both religious order and market freedom, […]

What is the theological meaning of Israel’s improbable triumph in the Six Day War? In 1968, Tradition convened leading Jewish thinkers from both Israel and the United States to consider the religious significance of the reunification of Jerusalem. Rabbi Norman Lamm, Michael Wyschograd, Pinchas Peli, Rabbi Shear Yashuv Cohen, and Rabbi Walter Wurzburger all contributed reflections. Here is Michael […]

Interfaith engagement has many champions in our politics and in our philanthropies. For Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, not all interfaith engagement was to be cheered. In his profound theological reflection, “Confrontation,” he argued that communities of faith are characterized by separate and irreconcilable theologies. However, such communities may share certain interests and may work together in […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.  The subject of this podcast is Joseph B. Soloveitchik’s classic 1964 essay, “Confrontation,” one of those rare, enduring masterpieces that is both a profound theological reflection on human nature, and an important work of Jewish communal policy. This essay—and […]

What can we make of Albert Einstein? He was at once Jew and World Citizen, Zionist and pacifist, rationalist and mystic, characterized by “melancholic loneliness” and by “gaiety.” In 1950, a young Irving Kristol offered a “Unified Field Theory” of Einstein, seeing the vital history of the West bound up in the complexity of the great Jewish […]

As part of the Tikvah Fund and Hertog Foundation’s Advanced Institute, “Is Israel Alone?,” Roger Hertog sat down with syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer to revisit Dr. Krauthammer’s legendary article for the fiftieth anniversary of Israeli independence. Published in The Weekly Standard, “At Last, Zion,” described the achievement of Israel’s founders within the full scope of Jewish history, […]

As part of the Tikvah Fund and Hertog Foundation’s Advanced Institute, “Is Israel Alone?,” Roger Hertog sat down with syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer to revisit Dr. Krauthammer’s legendary article for the fiftieth anniversary of Israeli independence. Published in The Weekly Standard, “At Last, Zion,” described the achievement of Israel’s founders within the full scope of Jewish history, […]

During last month’s Advanced Institute in Jerusalem, “God, Politics, and the Future of Europe,” Tikvah hosted a conversation on “Modernity, Religion and Morality” to discuss the decline of Western Civilization and to probe some of the reasons behind it. What happens when faith in the God of the Bible deteriorates?

Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove wrote a provocative article in 2007 titled “Where Have All the Theologians Gone?” This is the question Shearith Israel rabbi Meir Soloveichik and Mechon Hadar rabbi Shai Held begin with: Why is there so much less public argument about Jewish theology than there was in the middle of the last century? What […]