He advocated a return to the method of study of the Rishonim (pre-1500 CE rabbinic scholars) which the introduction to the Dor Revi'i states "was to explain with crystal clearness, to examine, to search for truth without any respect for any person"; he opposed the method of pilpul (casuistry) that arose during the era of the Acharonim (post-1500 CE scholars), saying pilpul is "as far from the path of wisdom as East is from West" (id.)

A founder of Mizrachi (religious Zionism), he became personally close to Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, especially after taking up residence in Jerusalem in 1923.

R. Yishmael interprets the verse to mean that for the preceding forty years the Israelites had been forbidden to eat any animal not offered as a sacrifice.

Apart from its importance as a traditional Talmudic commentary, Dor Revi'i is also noteworthy because of the philosophy of the Oral Law that is expounded in the introduction (haqdamah) to the work.

In the haqdamah, Rabbi Glasner develops a philosophy in which halakhah is seen not as the pure expression of Divine Will, but as a creative process in which man is an active participant.

Halakhah is the outgrowth of an evolving tradition that encompasses the attempts of the Sages of each generation to apply Divinely sanctioned principles of interpretation to the Written text received at Sinai.

Only through the creation of an authoritative text could the integrity of halakhah be maintained under the unprecedented conditions of prolonged exile in the absence of any supreme halakhic authority.

But the resulting ossification of the Oral Law owing to the combined effects of exile, persecution and an authoritative written text was seen as distinct from the process of halakhic evolution and development which Rabbi Glasner believed was the Divine intention.

It was from this philosophical perspective that he conceived using Zionism for restoring the Oral Law to its ancient position as the means by which Jewish people in each generation could find concrete expression.

"The reader of this work should not suspect that I would imagine that in every place that I have criticized rabbis who came before us, I have discerned the truth, for such a haughty spirit would be incomparably ignorant ... [I]t would contradict my approach completely, for my having dared to criticize is built on the principle that every person ... is liable to err ... [Others] will undoubtedly find many mistakes that I have made, because man is biased in favor of his own words and ideas.

Rabbi Glasner also published Shevivei Eish, a shorter work of commentary on the weekly Torah reading and the Festivals (translated in Resources below) which also includes novellae on various discussions in the Talmud and codifications in Maimonides Code.

He also published five short halakhic monographs: Ohr Bahir (1908) on the laws of purity and mikvaot; Halakhah l'Moshe (1908) and Yeshnah li-Shehitah on shehitah; Haqor Davar (1908) on conversion in cases of intermarriage; Matzah Shemurah on matzot for Passover.

The work was translated into Hebrew as haTzionut b'Ohr haEmuna and published in a volume edited by Simon Federbusch, Torah u-Meluhah (Jerusalem: Mosad haRav Kook, 1961).