Digital Library

Rabbi Meir Soloveichik reminds us that the Jews are a people who unite politics and food—or soul and body—and that the matzot carry a specific political meaning. Baked with haste, they are a reminder of the preciousness of…

Is there an acceptable level of inequality for a society to maintain? This was one of the questions addressed by economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin during the course of Tikvah’s advanced institute on “The Israeli Economy: A Strategy for the…

What, if anything, does the thought of Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine have to do with Judaism? National Affairs editor Yuval Levin looks at the question of change and continuity over the generations, certainly an issue of great importance…

American Enterprise Institute scholar James Pethokoukis argues that corporations—unlike citizens who might deserve a social safety net—must be spurred by the ever-present fear of failure. Without the possibility of failure, innovation, efficiency, and growth are impossible. In many…

Was there even a Homer? How accurate is The Iliad? Was there a ten-year war? As Cornell professor Barry Strauss explains, we need to read the epic poems of Homer as the historical memory of the Greek people—the legends and…

Hoover Institution scholar Peter Berkowitz and Tikvah’s executive director Eric Cohen explore Leo Strauss’s idea of the crisis of modernity. It is a crisis with two faces: technological progress has given human beings great power, exemplified by the…

Founding CEO of Ein Prat Academy Micah Goodman discusses the move from polytheism to monotheism as a revolutionary transition. This transition was much more than the simple exchange of a belief in many gods for a belief in…

To understand Irving Kristol’s defense and critique of capitalism, National Affairs editor Yuval Levin breaks down Kristol’s 1970 essay “‘When virtue loses all her loveliness’—some reflections on capitalism and ‘the free society'”. Kristol celebrated how capitalism offers prosperity and…

During Tikvah’s advanced institute on “Liberalism, Conservatism, and the Jews”, Hoover Institution scholar Peter Berkowitz discussed Michael Walzer’s account of the Talmudic parable of the oven of Akhnai. Is the oven pure? The rabbis say it is, but…

Both liberals and conservatives have good arguments for the idea of federalism, but they typically defend different things. As Tikvah’s executive director Eric Cohen and Weekly Standard editor William Kristol discuss, liberals praise moral freedom and cultural pluralism, while conservatives…

Rabbi Meir Soloveichik argues that the Passover Haggadah should be viewed as the key—and perhaps only—work of Jewish political thought for the hundreds of years between the Tanakh and Maimonides. No other text focuses as much on what…

While leading a discussion of Homer’s Iliad for Tikvah’s advanced institute on “War and Human Nature,” Cornell University’s Barry Strauss observes just what a central role emotions play in this ancient epic and in all wars. Wrath, gall, honor, spiritedness,…