Bar Nativ

Helps people go from "Judaism is a black hole for me" to feeling at home with the most complex Jewish texts. Organizes Talmud courses by day, and fantasizes of a glorious Ashkenazi renaissance by night (place gefilte fish emoji here). Founder @Shteygen - a place for secular Israelis to learn the most hardcore Jewish literature.

Maimonides’ Halakhic Revolution (and Why It Almost Worked)

Back in the Middle Ages, Maimonides set out on an extraordinary mission. His goal? To take all of Jewish law and tradition and condense it into one clear, orderly handbook that would finally get Jews to stop arguing. Spoiler alert: that didn’t quite happen.

The Jerusalem Talmud: The Beta Version of the Gemara

The Babylonian Talmud and Jerusalem Talmud had roughly the same starting point, so why did only one of them become a canonical book?

What We Do Isn’t Written, What Is Written Isn’t Done: The Story of the Oral Torah

The Bible may be the Book of Books, but when you look closely, you can see there’s an enormous gap between what is written in it and what the Jews actually practiced. This gap is part of the basic operating system of Judaism. How exactly does it work?