Today’s Daf Yomi page, Pesachim 33, dives down into accidents and mistakes. Does action matter most? Or is it intentionality? Rabbi Dovid Bashevkin joins us to riff on Judaism's majestic, complicated, and deeply humane system of adjudicating errors and slip-ups. Why do we treat mistakes on Shabbat differently? Listen and find out.
Today’s Daf Yomi page, Pesachim 32, tells us a bit about the privileges of the Kohanim, the priests who served in the ancient Temple. But do modern-day Kohens still enjoy any perks now that the Temple is gone? Rabbi Nuriel Klinger joins us to shed light on some well-known, and some largely obscure, benefits of being a Kohen these days. Why must a Kohen redeem the firstborn donkey? Listen and find out.
Today’s Daf Yomi page, Pesachim 31, is all about the boundaries Jews and gentiles must keep to live peacefully with each other. Rabbi Stuart Halpern joins us to help us to argue that respecting clear distinctions and differences makes society more, not less, cohesive. Why wouldn't he, a TV afficionado, let his kids watch that very special episode starring Santa? Listen and find out.
Today’s Daf Yomi pages, Pesachim 29 and 30, introduce the peculiar concept of Noten Ta'am, something that gives flavor, an idea that sounds like it belongs more on a cooking show than a page of Talmud. Rabbah Sarah Hurwitz joins us to explain this idea, and what it teaches us about the essence of Kashrut. What does taste have to do with keeping exclusively kosher pots and pans? Listen and find out.
Today’s Daf Yomi pages, Pesachim 27 and 28, raises everyone's favorite Passover pastime, the selling and buying of Chametz. Elana Stein Hain returns to make sense of all this wheeling and dealing, and explain why sometimes the deepest and most profound truths rest in legal loopholes. Is their secret poetry in our fine print? Listen and find out.
Today’s Daf Yomi page, Pesachim 26, is a festival for the senses. Rabbi Gidon Rothstein joins us to help us make sense of what we're supposed to think, say, or do, when we smell, see, and touch. Does the Talmud suggest a hierarchy of senses? Listen and find out.
Today’s Daf Yomi page, Pesachim 25, asks a pointed question: Are there values worth losing your life for? Rabbi Rena Singer joins us to discuss what's worth dying for and why. Is idolatry on the list, and what is it anyway? Listen and find out.
Today’s Daf Yomi page, Pesachim 24, the rabbis admit that prohibitions against eating certain things apply only if said things are eaten in the "usual manner." But what's the usual manner? Josh Kross returns to meditate on food snobbery, culinary expectations, and why innovation and tradition need each other sorely. What's the silliest way in the world to eat a burger? Listen and find out.
Today’s Daf Yomi pages, Pesachim 22 and 23, give us a touching story of an earnest scholar who realizes he got his life's work all wrong. Yael Steiner joins us to talk about the importance of humility, introspection, and paying attention. What lessons do the rabbis have for us about not succumbing to pride and learning to admit it when we get things wrong? Listen and find out.
Today’s Daf Yomi pages, Pesachim 20 and 21, introduce a concept that, at first blush, appears like a bit of a paradox: The more sacred something is, the more susceptible it is to impurity. Rabbi Dovid Bashevkin returns to unpack this complicated idea, and what it has to teach us about what truly matters in life. Why should you never post pictures of your loved ones on social media? Listen and find out.
Today’s Daf Yomi page, Pesachim 19, kicks things off with a novel halakhic ruling about hands. Lisa Ann Sandell returns to talk about her fear of germs, and how COVID-19 came as an affirmation of her very worst anxieties. Is there a message in antiquity's wisdom for us dirt-phobic moderns? Listen and find out.
Today’s Daf Yomi page, Pesachim 18, tosses us into a reality that feels all too familiar, one in which contamination spreads quickly and must be stopped before normal life can resume. Rabbi Jonathan Morgenstern joins us to explain how the Talmud's discussion of impurity has a special and starkly relevant resonance in the time of COVID-19. Why was the Hanukkah story, too, a tale of fighting an outbreak? Listen and find out.
Today’s Daf Yomi page, Pesachim 17, introduces us to the prophet Haggai. No one's idea of a superhero Biblical seer, Haggai, argues our guest, Rabbi Tzvi Sinensky, is the prophet we need right now, combining a delightful sense of practicality with a sharp and timeless moral vision. What can Haggai teach us that we desperately need to hear in 2020? Listen and find out.
Today’s Daf Yomi pages, Pesachim 15 and 16, ask a simple and searing question: How much should you sacrifice for your beliefs? It's a particularly poignant one these days, with a majority of Americans recently responding that they were afraid to openly and candidly share their political opinions. Legendary refusnik and former Israeli government minister and head of the Jewish Agency Natan Sharansky joins us, via a clip from a Tablet panel discussion earlier this winter, to talk about what happen...
Today’s Daf Yomi pages, Pesachim 13 and 14, give us a curious ruling: The Prophet Elijah will never come on the eve of Shabbat. Why? Rabbi Jacob J. Schacter joins us to teach us a lesson in the holy importance of preparations, one we desperately need to learn before we rush into things. Why should we wish one another a good Erev Shabbat, or Shabbat Eve, rather than a good Shabbat? Listen and find out.
Today’s Daf Yomi page, Pesachim 12, is about time. How late is rude late? How early is too early? Producer Sara Fredman Aeder returns to explain to us how the rabbis thought about time, and what we hurried moderns can learn from them. Why should you plan your day in 30-minute increments? Listen and find out.
Today’s Daf Yomi page, Pesachim 11, asks a question that's all too familiar: Is technology always bad? Always good? Something in the middle? Rabbi Gabi Weinberg joins us to teach us a lesson about controlling our machines lest they control us. How do we focus on traction rather than distraction? Listen and find out.
Today’s Daf Yomi page, Pesachim 10, makes us wonder: What role does doubt play in religious life? Rabbi Dovid Bashevkin returns to explain Judaism's obsession with constant questioning. What lesson might a couple of mice teach us about the universe and our place in it? Listen and find out.
Today’s Daf Yomi pages, Pesachim 8 and 9, remind us of the difficulty and importance of doing good deeds for their own sake. Producer Josh Kross returns to share a story of an emotional Thanksgiving, and teach us a lesson on life in the time of COVID-19. How does an ancient story about pilgrimage help us rethink our very modern priorities? Listen and find out.
Today’s Daf Yomi pages, Pesachim 6 and 7, riff about blessings, which we always make before performing a mitzvah. With one notable exception: Rabbi Dovid Bashevkin returns to help us make sense of one more way the night of Passover is different. How is the seder like a ritual pool? Listen and find out.
Today’s Daf Yomi page, Pesachim 5, is serious about the prohibition on having any unleavened bread in the house before Passover. Author Meira Spivak joins us to share her full-proof method for physical and spiritual cleaning. Can true preparation occur in just under a week? Or is the task of prepping for Pesach a year-long obligation? Listen and find out.
Today’s Daf Yomi page, Pesachim 4, gives us a helpful reminder that any mitzvah worth doing is worth doing early. Dr. Elana Stein Hain joins us to explain this principle, and why it's essential in these busy and distracted times. Does the early bird always get the mitzvah? Listen and find out.
Today’s Daf Yomi page, Pesachim 3, finds the rabbis singing the praises of euphemisms and going to great lengths not to say bad words. Why? Listen and find out.
Today’s Daf Yomi page, Pesachim 2, kicks off Tractate Pesachim, and, as per usual with the Talmud, it does so in a quizzical fashion. Rabbi Dovid Bashevkin returns to introduce us to this new tractate. Why refer to Passover in the plural? And why start out the discussion with the word "light"? Listen and find out.
Today’s Daf Yomi pages, Eruvin 103, 104, and 105, bring to a close Tractate Eruvin, one of the Talmud's most intricate and complicated volumes. Law professor Ethan Lieb joins us to celebrate, and muse on the Hadran, the blessing at the end of each tractate, which contains a surprising message we shouldn't ignore. Why does the Talmud animate each one of its tractates? Listen and find out.
Today’s Daf Yomi page, Eruvin 102, is very much in vogue, asking about the black hats that observant Jewish men so often wear. But why wear these hats at all? Rabbi Dovid Bashevkin returns to offer his observations on the meeting of style and substance, and what the black hat truly means. Are orthodox Jews fashion outliers? Listen and find out.
Today’s Daf Yomi page, Eruvin 101, discusses tradition, and why the way we used to do thing matters when we try to figure out what's right and what's wrong. Yehuda Goldberg joins us to discuss the importance of customs. How do customs help us build community? Listen and find out.
Today’s Daf Yomi page, Eruvin 100, has the rabbis warning against a husband trying to have intercourse with his wife without her explicit consent. Rabbi Aviva Richman joins us to explain why this rabbinic recognition of the notion of consent is tremendously meaningful even if it is deeply flawed. What can this passage teach us about the Talmud's approach to sex? Listen and find out.
Today’s Daf Yomi pages, Eruvin 98 and 99, remind us again that it is forbidden to throw away sacred writings. We talk about book collections, and why so many of us hold on even to books they know they'll never read. Do books have magical powers? Listen and find out.
Today’s Daf Yomi pages, Eruvin 96 and 97, raise a curious question: Why are we commanded to wear tefillin every day of the week but not on Shabbat? Rabbi Dovid Bashevkin returns to ponder this conundrum and find in it a seminal principle to live by. Does absence truly make the heart grow fonder? Listen and find out.
