I'm not Jewish, but I'm sort of curious about something: So, the requirements for water-dwelling creatures to be kosher is to A: have scales, and B: have fins. While they may not be kosher to eat as birds (as another question on this site addressed), since they're fish-eating birds like seagulls,...

In Haym Soloveitchik's seminal essay "Rupture and Reconstruction" (1994) he lays out the state of Orthodoxy in the 20th century. Primarily, how Orthodoxy changed in the 20th century in particular regarding reliance on books, rather than tradition, and what effect that has on how people practice. ...