Torah in the Time of Plague: Historical and Contemporary Jewish Responses

Guidance and provocations for finding meaning in ‘unprecedented’ times.

Torah in a Time of Plague: Historical and Contemporary Jewish Reflections, winner of the 2021 National Jewish Book Award in Modern Jewish Thought and Experience.

This collection of essays uses Torah – broadly understood to include any canonical Jewish text or tradition – to illuminate, explore, bemoan, or grapple with our current moment of plague.

Rabbi Dr. Erin Leib Smokler is the Dean of Students and the Director of Spiritual Development at Yeshivat Maharat rabbinical school, where she teaches Hasidism and Pastoral Torah. She is also a faculty member at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America and at the Institute for Jewish Spirituality.

Erin earned both her PhD and MA from the University of Chicago’s Committee on Social Thought, and her BA from Harvard University. She was ordained by Yeshivat Maharat.

Erin previously served as Assistant Literary Editor of The New Republic magazine, and her writing has appeared there, as well as in The New York Times Book Review, The Jewish Week, and other publications. She recently won the 2021 National Jewish Book Award in Modern Jewish Thought and Experience for her collection, Torah in a Time of Plague: Historical and Contemporary Jewish Reflections (Ben Yehudah Press).