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Issue 5.6: Halakhah and Psychology

In this issue of Kol Hamevaser, we explore the connections and interactions between Halakhah and Psychology. It is apparent from overarching halakhic principles and specific halakhic practices that Halakhah accounts for the way that we think, feel, and react. This relationship between Halakhah and Psychology is a fascinating and fruitful subject, and we hope that this issue of Kol Hamevaser will serve as a starting point for further discussion.  Read more →

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Latest Articles

Editors’ Thoughts: The Living Torah

By Gabrielle Hiller | Comment ()
When the Jewish people arrive in Midbar Sin soon after yetsi’at Mitsrayim, they approach Moshe and Aharon and complain about their lack of food.[i] In response, Hashem famously tells Moshe that a special food, soon to be known as man, will rain down from the heavens every day except for ... Read more →

What Happens to the Dangerous Shoteh?

By Gilad Barach | Comment ()
Law and order are at the core of any civilization. The Torah emphasizes their significance in demanding that courts be active not only in Jewish society[i] but in non-Jewish Noahide society as well.[ii] Due to the prevalence of these courts, the notion that crime calls for punishment is ... Read more →

Dissonance and Damage Control in the Search for Meaning

By Adam Friedmann | Comment ()
“The individual strives towards [inner] consistency.”[i] This notion forms the basis of Leon Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance. The consistencies in question include both ones between cognitive elements and the relation between beliefs and actions. That is to say that a ... Read more →

An Interview with Dr. Stephen Glicksman

By Gavriel Brown | Comment ()
GB: Jews have played major roles in the founding of major branches of psychology. A partial list of contemporary Jewish psychologists includes: personality psychologist Alfred Adler, Polish Gestalt psychologist Solomon Asch, facial expert Paul Ekman, ethicist Carol Gilligan, humanistic ... Read more →

Why I Could Not Live Anywhere Else

By Rafi Miller | Comment ()
“Make aliyah!” call many Religious Zionists. As Jews, they tell us, we belong in the Jewish homeland, so every one of us who lives elsewhere must get up and move to Israel. How simple! But, unfortunately, most of us are not getting up and moving, even if we identify with the Religious ... Read more →

The Beauty of Two Worlds: The Metsuveh and the Eino Metsuveh

By Gabrielle Hiller | Comment ()
Scenario one: You arrive home, put your bags down, and walk into the kitchen. Out of the corner of your eye, you notice that the sink is full of dishes, but you move on to the refrigerator and take out something to eat. You settle down at the table for your meal. A few minutes [...]

The Gerizim Address

By Chesky Kopel | Comment ()
In a time of terrible instability and violence in pre-monarchial Israel, a prominent family is massacred by one of its own. Seventy siblings are slaughtered on one stone by their brother. Only one, the very youngest, survives, for he had gone into hiding when the killing began.[i] His underdog ... Read more →

Shiv’ah: Psychology in Disguise

By Penina Wein | Comment ()
Different religions address death in a variety of ways, often with an array of practices. Judaism, in particular, has a very detailed system that normally consists of three stages: aninut, shiv’ah, and sheloshim. (Additionally, following the death of a parent, an eleven-month mourning period ... Read more →

Tortured Masters: Heresy, Hegemony, and the Historiography of Hasidut

By Gavriel Brown | Comment ()
Reviewed Book: David Assaf, Untold Tales of the Hasidim: Crisis and Discontent in the History of Hasidism(Hanover, NH: University of New England, 2010).   “All my life is one long chain of suppressed desires, concealed ideas, shattered cravings and wishes,” wrote a young Rabbi Yitzchak ... Read more →

Editor’s Thoughts: Must Eliminating Otherness Be a Selfless Endeavor?

By Ariel Caplan | Comment ()
The Torah commands us, “ve-halakhta bi-derakhav” – “you shall walk in His ways,”[i] and Rambam interprets this as a call to imitatio dei (imitating God).[ii] Elsewhere, he writes that God cannot be defined positively, but must instead be understood based on what He is ... Read more →

Response to Jewish Education Issue

By Rabbi Leib Zalesch | Comment ()
Dear Editors, Your interview with Rabbi Adler (5:2) for the most part solidified the high esteem in which I hold this master builder of Jewish education. However, I was troubled by his comments on Brisker lomdus in high schools as the best means of “intellectual stimulation” on ... Read more →

Integral Other: The Need for Relationships in Judaism

By Chumie Yagod | Comment ()
[i]             Picture yourself on a mountaintop, surrounded only by a gentle breeze and the brilliant blue sky above. Not a sound can you hear; neither a voice calling your name nor a car screeching in the background, nobody and nothing distracting you from introspection. Up here ... Read more →

The Jew as the “Other”?

By Shmuel Lamm | Comment ()
In our politically correct Western culture, Modern Orthodox Jews face an unrelenting intellectual struggle. We embrace the concept that “all men are created equal”[1] and staunchly affirm the inherent moral value of mankind. Yet, even as we interact with our non-Jewish neighbors, we preach ... Read more →

Interview with Rabbi David Bigman

By Gavriel Brown | Comment ()
GB: Do you view your yeshivah as having a distinct mission or credo that sets it apart from the other yeshivot hesder? If so, what is it?   RDB: Let me first discuss what we have in common with the rest of the yeshivah world. First, in terms of the broad yeshivah world, we share [...]
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