Gil Student

On July 28, 1876-150 years ago-the Prussian parliament passed a law allowing secession from a Jewish communit…

We live in an age of polarization, of partisan conflict and cancellation. We need to overcome these divisions…

Twelve score and ten years ago, on July 4, 1776, the United States of America was declared with the formal ad…

The advent of artificial intelligence (AI) forces us to ask how to classify it within biblical conceptions of…

Society cannot function if witnesses remain silent. Whether the issue is a crime, a contract or a disputed tr…

Lately, people are rightly debating the moral and philosophical questions raised by Artificial Intelligence (…

Religious life is often marred by a jarring, almost hypocritical inversion of priorities. We encounter people…

Lately, I've seen kosher pizzerias offering vegetarian pepperoni pizza. Additionally, more and more kosher re…

The prayers were originally taught orally, like all Jewish texts other than the Bible. Their publication invo…

When I was in yeshiva high school many decades ago, some students occasionally went to the racetracks to watc…

Rav Yitzchak Herzog was personally convinced that the Jewish settlement in Israel would continue indefinitely…

For many singles who deeply wish to marry but have not yet found the right partner, the pain is not only pers…

It is now common for many American yeshiva students to spend a "gap year" in Israel after high school. This y…

When someone converts to Judaism, he or she chooses a Jewish name with which to be called for ritual purposes…

Drinking coffee raises a surprising halachic difficulty. Coffee seems to have entered the Jewish world during…

Shuls (synagogues) need funding in order to maintain the building and provide services to members. This is cl…

A recent saying has it that every Jew is a tzadik, righteous. Taken literally, the statement strains credulit…

Living in Israel is a religious ideal, even a mitzvah. But the Gemara goes even further, saying it has additi…

"Stop, in the Name of God" is a surprising book of praise for a traditional Jewish practice by a leading Chri…

There is a fairly common practice for charity organizations to send people free gifts-calendars, books, Chanu…

The recent worldwide growth of open antisemitism has prompted many Jews to hide their identity. Out of fear o…

Chanukah occupies an unusual place in halacha. Most mitzvos fall on the individual. Chanukah's primary mitzva…

We tend to imagine the great sages as flawless in both halachic mastery and personal awareness. Generally, th…

This Shabbos, Vayishlach 5786, is designated as the Knitted Kippah Shabbos in commemoration of the 30th yartz…