Q. I hear that our ancestors translated the Torah reading as they went. Why don’t we do the same? A. The ancient practice was to call up one person to read the Torah and another “l’targem”, “to ...

Seventy metal books allegedly discovered in a cave in Jordan have been hailed as the earliest Christian documents. Dating them to mere decades after Jesus' death, scholars have called the "lead ...

Answer: The Mechaber (Orach Chayyim 285:1) states as follows: “Even though a person hears the entire Torah [portion] every Sabbath at the congregational reading, one is nevertheless required to read ...

Trying to unravel the mysteries of Aramaic is like embarking on an odyssey across the deserts, mountains and valleys of the Middle East and onwards to Europe and North America. It is an intellectual ...

Why has the Aramaic translator rendered the mysterious "sound of subdued silence" (חקד חממד לוק) in 1 Kgs 19:12 by "the sound of those (= the angels) praising quietly" (׳שחכ ו׳חבשׁמך לק)? It can be ...

Amanda Smith: This week on Lingua Franca, what language did Jesus speak? Hi, I'm Amanda Smith and the question's been prompted by the release of the Mel Gibson film The Passion of the Christ. In the ...