Essays on Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) and Jewish Thought

Tradition

Print Edition

• Book Review: Abram to Abraham: A Literary Analysis of the Abraham Narrative by Jonathan Grossman
  Tradition 50:1 (Spring 2017)
• Humans Blessing God - A Mystical Idea And Modern Implications
  Tradition 50:4 (Winter 2018)

  Explores what it could mean for humans to “bless” God, starting from Onkelos’s rendering of Exodus 15:18 and Ramban’s reference to the sod ha-berakhot. Traces the idea of “divine need” through medieval and kabbalistic sources, the objections of Maimonides and Maharal, and modern reframings by R. Samson Raphael Hirsch, Rav Kook, and R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, focusing on human action, free will, and divine “passivity.”

• Goral - Can We Let God Roll the Dice?
  Tradition 53:2 (Spring 2021)

  Asks what goral (casting lots) means in the Bible and halakha, and why it is permitted while divination is forbidden. Traces biblical cases (Achan, Jonah, Purim, and the Yom Kippur goats) and later interpretations (Maimonides, Ramban, R. Samson Raphael Hirsch, and R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik), arguing that goral uses randomness to decide under uncertainty while preserving human responsibility and choice.

Online Edition

• Review: Approaching Transition
  Gishat HaTemurot [Hebrew], edited by Hezi Cohen and Aviad Evron
  (October 23, 2019)
• Words of Ailing, Words of Healing
  (March 30, 2020)

  Traces how Hebrew vocabulary for illness, plague, disease, recovery, and healing reflects ancient roots, later linguistic development, and shifting assumptions about health. Uses the phenomenon of contronyms—especially a root that can mean both “to heal” and “to weaken”—to frame the uncertainty of the pandemic, concluding with a rabbinic passage that holds together trust in medicine and trust in God as healer.

• Amen and A-Women
  (January 13, 2021)

  Uses the “amen and a-woman” episode to ask whether Hebrew should be guarded as a fixed sacred language or treated as flexible and evolving. Draws on Maimonides’ defense of rabbinic linguistic innovation and on the Torah’s first human wordplay (ish/ishah) to argue that creativity and puns can be legitimate forms of Hebrew use.

• Review: Insights into Hebrew, Holidays, History & Liturgy
  Mitchell First, Roots & Rituals: Insights into Hebrew, Holidays, and History; Links to Our Legacy: Insights into Hebrew, History, and Liturgy (August 30, 2021)
• Leaps of Faith in Different Directions
  Between Kierkegaard and the Rav (May 31, 2022)

  Asks why Kierkegaard matters so much to R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, and where the Rav parts ways with him. Using Clare Carlisle’s biography alongside The Lonely Man of Faith and Kierkegaard’s Akedah-centered account of faith, it argues that the Rav draws on Kierkegaard’s emphasis on lived commitment over proof, while rejecting his anti-institutional stance and his model of “sacrifice” in his broken engagement to Regine Olsen, and instead grounding faith in covenant and marriage.

• The BEST: Saving Private Ryan
  (September 1, 2022)

  Contrasts Saving Private Ryan with The Irishman to ask what it means to “earn” the sacrifices of the past, and what kind of life leaves a real legacy. Bringing the films into conversation with biblical concerns about remembrance and Kohelet’s skepticism about lasting fame, it argues that the most enduring legacy is not public achievement but a life of moral responsibility—expressed in family, commitment, and reverence for God.

• Response: Considering “God, Man and History”
  (December 13, 2022)

  Responds to an essay published in TRADITION about Heschel and “divine pathos,” arguing that it misrepresents R. Eliezer Berkovits as a Maimonidean rationalist. Drawing on God, Man and History and Berkovits’ own later clarifications, it claims that Berkovits accepts the biblical language of God’s concern but criticizes Heschel for letting that language blur the line between God’s transcendence and human emotion.

• Review: Faith and History
  Eliezer Berkovits, Faith and History: Essays on Prayer, Exile, and Return (May 21, 2024)
• The BEST: The Office
  (January 29, 2026)

  Uses “Scott’s Tots” from The Office to ask how we judge wrongdoing when intentions feel “good” and outcomes might still help, and argues—via moral luck—that responsibility turns on what was chosen and why, not on whatever benefits happen afterward. It traces that distinction through Michael Scott’s self-deception, the moral recoil of Lot’s story (Genesis 19) and its later repair in Ruth, and then shows how halakha treats intention as decisive in yibbum versus halitza (Bekhorot 1:7; Yevamot 39b), as a model for weighing accountability before consequences can rewrite the story.

• The Torah Will Never Change
  (February 9, 2026)

  Reads Maimonides’ ninth principle (“the Torah will never be changed”) through two Religious Zionist responses to modern sovereignty: R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik’s added “fourteenth Ani Ma’amin,” which makes the principle a practical claim that Torah can be fully realized under every technological and political condition, and R. Chaim Hirschensohn’s insistence that the same principle is endangered precisely by rigidity that denies halakhic “contingencies.” The essay pivots from the Rav’s fear of concession (revision or retreat) to Hirschensohn’s fear of brittleness (dogmatized inflexibility), arguing that each diagnoses a different way Torah’s permanence can be hollowed out in modern public life.

Hakirah

• Sanctifying Our Choices: The Solution to the Paradox of Orthodoxy
  Hakirah 27 (2019)

  Frames a tension in Orthodox halakha through Yeshayahu Leibowitz: if halakha is divine authority, how can it depend on human choice—both in rabbinic ruling and in how individuals decide whom to follow? Moves from Leibowitz’s model to Maimonides’ language of consecration and kiddushin, arguing that halakhic obligation begins in choice but becomes binding through sanctification once accepted.

• Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits and Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik: Neighbors Behind Fences
  Hakirah 33 (2023)

  Compares Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik (“the Rav”) and Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits—two thinkers with parallel biographies—to ask how halakhah should relate to history in the modern period. Traces the Rav’s halakhic formalism against Berkovits’s view of halakhah as Torah applied to changing realities, and argues (through the later pairing of R. Aharon Lichtenstein and R. Yehudah Amital) that Orthodoxy today needs to recover Berkovits’s approach.

Jewish Bible Quarterly

• The Nation of Isaac
  Jewish Bible Quarterly 48:1 (2020)

  Argues that Genesis is structured as a chiasm with Isaac at its center, presenting him not as a bridge between Abraham and Jacob but as the Torah’s model of “particularity”: total commitment to the land and to one spouse. By contrasting Isaac’s choices with Abraham’s and Jacob’s, it claims that Isaac represents the story that could have been—until the descent to Egypt forced a reset that is only resolved through the Sinai covenant of obligations and mitzvot.

• The Cries of our Rivals
  Jewish Bible Quarterly 50:4 (2022)

  Examines why Deuteronomy commands Israel not to abhor Edom and Egypt, and not to harass Moab, despite their hostile treatment of Israel. By tracing parallel motifs in the Torah’s narratives (birthright, blessing, and the “great cry”) and drawing on Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’s reading of chosenness, it argues that the Torah builds moral memory without chauvinism by requiring empathy even toward rivals and the “unchosen.”

The Lehrhaus

• Who Will Defend Maimonides? Rav Soloveitchik on the Mishneh Torah and the Guide
  (January 2, 2017)

  Asks how Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik (“the Rav”) related to Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah and Guide for the Perplexed, and whether he privileged Rambam the halakhist or Rambam the philosopher. Argues that the Rav’s real divide is not halakhah vs. philosophy but deductive vs. inductive approaches to knowing God, reading the Mishneh Torah as relying more on cosmological explanation while the Guide moves toward immediate, experiential apprehension—allowing the Rav to defend Maimonides while rejecting “proofs” in the modern sense.

• Could It Have Been Different? History According to the Rabbis Joseph Soloveitchik
  (April 2, 2020)

  Asks whether the prophecy of brit bein ha-betarim had to unfold as the Egyptian exile, presenting Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik (“the Rav”)’s argument that it could have been fulfilled instead in Jacob’s years in Haran—and that the sale of Joseph redirected Jewish history. Contrasts this with the Rav’s great-grandfather, the Beit ha-Levi, who argues that Torah and mitzvot precede history, and uses the disagreement to frame the Rav’s broader insistence on human agency and activism, including his religious Zionism.

• Should Jacob Have Conquered Canaan?
  (November 18, 2021)

  Examines whether Jacob should have conquered Canaan on returning from Haran, arguing from the Torah’s language and parallels with Esau that the moment invited conquest despite the lack of an explicit command. Answers the main objections by reading Jacob’s restraint as a missed opportunity that helped set the stage for the Dinah episode, the brothers’ rebellion and sale of Joseph, and the long detour into exile, echoing Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik’s claim that history could have unfolded differently.

• Ishmael and Moses: Everything Is Foreseen or Freedom Is Given?
  (November 17, 2024)

  Compares the banishment of Ishmael with the rescue of Moses by tracing a dense web of verbal parallels, and argues that the stories are structured less as national or theological contrasts than as moral tests of how people respond to a vulnerable child in front of them. Reading Ibn Ezra, Rashi’s “judged by present deeds,” Pirkei Avot’s “Everything is foreseen, yet freedom of choice is granted,” and Maimonides together, it frames Miriam and Pharaoh’s daughter as models of human freedom to act with compassion even when culture and circumstance point the other way.

• The Trees of Eden and the Trees of the Siege: Conquest and Protection
  (August 27, 2025)

  Reads Deuteronomy 20:19–20 against Genesis 2–3 to ask why the siege law protects fruit trees but permits cutting down non-fruit-bearing trees. Argues that the verse’s emphasis on “knowing” a tree is not for food deliberately echoes Eden’s Tree of Knowledge and Tree of Life, and—through Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik’s The Lonely Man of Faith—frames the mitzvah as a wartime boundary between “conquer and subdue” and “work and guard,” privileging the protection of life-sustaining trees even during conquest.

18Forty

• In an Age of Deepfakes, the Torah Reminds Us How Truth Is Verified
  (November 21, 2025)

  Explores how AI-generated images and video undermine the modern assumption that recordings can function as proof, and asks what a culture of truth looks like once “seeing” no longer guarantees believing. Drawing on Andrew Bosworth’s “pre-1900s” analogy and the Torah’s witness model (Deuteronomy 19:15; Sanhedrin 37b), it argues that halacha’s reliance on accountable human testimony—tested through multiple witnesses and cross-examination—offers a workable framework for verification in an era of deepfakes and the “liar’s dividend.”

Seforim Blog

• Mikra Pashut: A New Reading of the Tanakh
  (September 9, 2025)

Daf Aleph

• Navigating a Dynamic Torah: How Its Trajectory Can Resolve Moral Dilemmas
  (October 26, 2024)

  Responds to the moral anger provoked by the Torah’s law of the eshet yefat to’ar in light of modern atrocities, and argues that the Torah intends that outrage to propel halakhic development rather than leave the Torah’s legal surface as the last word. Drawing on Gishat HaTemurot, Judy Klitsner’s Subversive Sequels in the Bible, and Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits, it challenges the common assumption that halakha must be static because God is unchanging, and instead frames Torah as a moral trajectory that advances through the interaction of written law, Torah ideals, and historical reality.

• The Orthodox Literary Approach: Opening Doors and Closing Gaps
  (February 5, 2025)

  Traces how the modern literary approach to Tanakh can keep readers engaged with the text even when questions about contradictions, authorship, and historicity threaten faith and shut down dialogue between “believers” and “non-believers.” After surveying Robert Alter, James Kugel, and Rabbi Mordechai Breuer, it argues that the Orthodox literary work of Prof. Yonatan Grossman and Rabbi David Fohrman—grounded in Maimonides’ approach to aggadah and Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik’s truth/accuracy distinction—offers a workable framework for serious reading without polemics or apologetics.

Published in Books

• “Kingdom of Priests - Missed Opportunities”
  Included in Lighting Up The Nations: Jewish Responsibility Towards the Nations Today and in the Messianic Era (Geula Watch Press, 2021)

  Traces how the Torah’s ideal of Israel as a “kingdom of priests”—as explained by Sforno on Exodus 19:5–6—was meant to bring God’s name and justice to the nations, and asks why that mission repeatedly stalled in biblical history. It argues that at key turning points (Abraham in Egypt, Joseph before Pharaoh, Solomon’s Temple, and Zerubbabel’s refusal of partnership in Ezra 4), Israel repeatedly turned inward at moments that could have advanced that universal calling, delaying the broader blessing promised in Genesis 12:3.

Times of Israel

All posts can be found here: David Curwin at Times of Israel

Here are some selected posts (chronological):

• Why I’m Not Fasting on Tisha B’Av This Year
  (July 16, 2012)

  Separates Tisha B’Av mourning into three losses—Eretz Yisrael, Jerusalem, and the Temple—and argues that in a rebuilt Jerusalem and a renewed Jewish return to the land, our prayers should reflect gratitude rather than desolation. Drawing on Rav Yoel Bin-Nun (in the name of Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook), Tehillim 24, and Prof. Ephraim Urbach’s Rachem, it locates the core fast in what remains missing: the moral and spiritual level needed for the Temple.

• A Sweet New Year?
  (September 9, 2012)

  Reconsiders the common reading of the High Holiday prayers that “who will live and who will die” is decided each year, and uses the Rashbash (Responsum 195) to argue that most people are not being judged annually for life or death, since lifespan follows a natural course unless shortened by avoidable dangers. It then applies that idea to modern life by treating “good behavior and maintaining health” as a religious responsibility, focusing especially on reducing sugar consumption as one concrete form of choosing life in practice.

• Rabbi Hartman and the Unanswered Question
  (February 26, 2013)

  Reassesses Rabbi David Hartman’s reputation as “liberal” by arguing that his Sinai-centered covenantal model—set against the Akedah paradigm associated with Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik and Prof. Yeshayahu Leibowitz—demands greater human responsibility, including moral confrontation, halakhic creativity, and active Zionism. It then asks where that approach stops, probing whether Hartman left room for an “Akedah moment” of submission when moral intuition and halakha cannot be reconciled.

• After 800 Years, Thank You
  (September 30, 2013)

  Traces the origins of modern Bible chapter divisions, focusing on Cardinal Stephen Langton and the way those breaks sometimes obscure the Torah’s own internal structure and traditional parasha framework. Argues that Langton’s broader legacy—shaped by Deuteronomy’s limits on kingship and expressed in the Magna Carta—illustrates how Torah ideas can travel outward and reshape other legal and moral cultures.

• Rav Ovadia and Rabbi Hartman – Not as Different as You Might Think
  (October 10, 2013)

  Traces how Rabbi Ovadia Yosef and Rabbi David Hartman—often treated as opposites—both rely on the same midrash about the moral cost of harsh legal outcomes such as mamzerut. Argues that this shared source points to a common commitment to halakha as the primary tool for moral and communal guidance: Hartman insisting on it even among followers drawn to conscience without law, and Rav Ovadia insisting on it even among followers drawn to mysticism without structure.

• To a Healthier Judaism
  (October 30, 2013)

  Draws on Haym Soloveitchik’s “Rupture and Reconstruction” to describe the shift from mimetic Orthodoxy to a text-based halakhic culture that often generates escalating chumrot, and compares it to Michael Pollan’s critique of “nutritionism,” where traditional eating is replaced by expert-driven rules. Suggests adapting Pollan’s practical “food rules” as a framework for recovering confidence in inherited practice while still allowing thoughtful innovation, especially when guided by ethical aims.

• Jerusalem and Carthage: Why Only One Tisha B’Av?
  (July 19, 2015)

  Asks why Jews commemorate national destruction on Tisha B’Av while other annihilated nations like Carthage do not, and argues that Jewish history is shaped by an irrevocable covenant that prevents national disappearance but not national suffering. It develops that tension through the different consequences Saul and David faced after sin, and through Jeremiah’s critique of reliance on the Temple and Ezekiel’s insistence that Israel cannot simply become “like the nations,” framing Jewish survival as a mission that demands Sinai-level responsibility rather than as a guarantee of safety.

• The Torah Isn’t Talking to You
  (November 17, 2016)

  Argues that many “you” commands in the Torah (like rejoicing on festivals in Deuteronomy 16:14 and resting on Shabbat in Exodus 20:10) are addressed primarily to those with power and property, obligating them to extend joy and rest to dependents and outsiders. Reads that pattern as a core Torah ethic—strength must protect the vulnerable—and applies it as a critique of Jewish political alliances that ignore the fears of immigrants, minorities, and women.

• From Pesach to Yom HaShoah: Dayenu
  (April 8, 2018)

  Takes two Seder questions—the rabbis’ multiplication of the plagues (Rabbi Eliezer vs. Rabbi Akiva) and Dayenu’s praise over the death of the Egyptian firstborn—and reads them through Tehillim’s “Asaph” psalms (Psalms 73–83), where the Exodus is remembered alongside the destruction of Jerusalem and a plea for vengeance (“Pour out Your fury”). The claim is that these Haggadah passages make more sense as the language of Jews in exile, recalling Egypt not as dinner-table triumphalism but as a way of praying for God’s intervention against the enemies of their own time.

• Shemini Atzeret – Why Didn’t We Stop?
  (December 17, 2023)

  Reads October 7 through the lens of Shemini Atzeret itself—not just “Simchat Torah”—as a day meant to mark the end of Tishrei’s movement and tension, and the moment when the people finally stop, gather, and settle into joy. The claim is that the day’s collapse into sirens and war wasn’t only a tragic coincidence but an inversion that exposes what had been missing in the weeks before it, and that the unity that followed wasn’t sentimental—it was the kind of shared responsibility the day was always meant to teach.

• Torah, Technology and the Internet: 30 Years Later
  (May 22, 2024)

  Revisits a 30-year-old post about “Torah, Technology and the Internet” to ask what happens to Torah study and halakhic authority when breadth (sinai) becomes searchable—first through digital libraries and now through AI—and when “depth” (oker harim) may also be simulated. It argues, through Rabbi Menachem Kasher’s vision of a generation gathering dispersed Torah into one place, that the move from databases to tools like ChatGPT and specialized Torah AI raises a theological question as much as a practical one: whether this new kind of analysis is merely convenience, or part of the larger arc toward “clear halakha in one place” and the Torah’s return to the center of Jewish life.

• Jonah and Hallel: Similar Songs, Distinct Messages
  (September 28, 2025)

  Tracks repeated phrases and motifs linking Hallel (Psalms 113–118) with Jonah’s sea narrative (Jonah 1–2), and asks why two texts that sound so similar end up disagreeing about who deserves mercy. The essay argues that the break comes in Jonah’s labeling of sinners as “liars,” which Hallel corrects through its own self-rebuke and a model of renewal (ma’avir rishon rishon, as developed by Rabbi Yoel Bin Nun), with a practical extension—drawn from Dr. Richard Curwin’s educational writing—toward resisting moral “labeling” in how people judge one another.

Academia.edu

For a complete list of essays, including PDF versions, see my Academia.edu profile.