Philo of Alexandria would have had no problem eating a cheeseburger. On the famous verse from this week’s Torah reading (Exod 23:19), he writes (Virtues 142–144): “If indeed anyone thinks it good to boil meat in milk, let him do so without cruelty and keeping clear of impiety”

Each new discovery only serves to support the “Hasmonean hypothesis”. Every year, more and more evidence for widespread Torah observance emerges from the ground. All of it dates to the Hasmonean period and onward. And every year, more and more Early Hellenistic, Persian, and

Modern-day, Islamic version of the Rabban Gamaliel and Rabbi Joshua debate? (Mishnah, Rosh Hashanah 2:8–9)

Today is the third of Adar, the day construction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem was completed according to Ezra 6:15. And this week’s Torah reading includes the instruction to construct a golden, seven-branched menorah to be set up in the tabernacle. My post today honors both

"This Moses, the ancient man, whose existence and character you scholars seek to clarify; this is a matter only for academics like yourselves. As for us, we have another Moses. Our Moses, his form is fixed in the heart of our nation from generation to generation, and his

I just plugged this into 4 different LLMs to test them: ChatGPT Gemini Grok Claude Not one of them understood this pretty straightforward text. It goes without saying that all of them gave answers. Wrong answers, but answers nonetheless...

Working today on the paleography of the tefillin and mezuzot from the Judean Desert. I just happened upon this figure in Ada Yardeni's magnificent The Book of Hebrew Script. History, Palaeography, Script Styles, Calligraphy & Design (Jerusalem: Carta, 1997). It shows the

Someone hasn't been reading his/her Bible.

Finally received my volumes 📚

This is the quasi-secretive bunker built for Israeli government meetings in times of crisis. Before it was constructed, I used to bike past this spot every day on my way to the National Library to work on my PhD. One day I noticed a salvage excavation and stopped to see what

Happy Purim to all who celebrate.

Hoping to be here next year.

This really makes me wonder exactly how Google's autocomplete predicts the next words in a search... (Probably only a small number of you will have any idea why I was Googling this. Rest assured, though, I have no interest in purchasing any!)