Take One Daf Yomi

Today’s Talmud pages, Nazir 39 and 40, discusses the questions of when a person dyes their hair. Author and editor Lisa Ann Sandell and Rabbi Dovid Bashevkin join us to share their stories of the experience of going grey, and the decision to, or not to dye their hair. Is there a different experience for men than for women? Listen and find out. Take One is a Tablet Studios production. The show is hosted by Liel Leibovitz, and is produced and edited by Darone Ruskay, Quinn Waller and Elie Bleier. Our team also includes Stephanie Butnick, Josh Kross, Mark Oppenheimer, Robert Scaramuccia, and Tanya Singer.  Check out all of Tablet’s podcasts at tabletmag.com/podcasts.

Our hearts and minds are heavy right now, and we here at Unorthodox are working hard to bring you a special episode in the coming days. In the meantime, we know many of you have questions about how we got here. To get to the root of some of them, Tablet Magazine hosted a zoom, moderated by our own Liel Liebovitz, and we want to share it with you now.

Covering Their Tracks is the extraordinary story of a young man’s escape from a moving train bound for the Auschwitz concentration camp during the Holocaust, and his fight to hold the French national rail company, the SNCF, accountable for their actions as they later bid for lucrative high-speed rail contracts in the United States. For more information visit http://tabletmag.com/coveringtheirtracks or search for Covering Their Track wherever you get your podcasts.

As Jews around the world begin a new seven-and-a-half year cycle of Daf Yomi, reading the entire Talmud one page per day, Tablet Magazine's new podcast, Take One, will offer a brief and evocative daily read of the daf. We launch the cycle with a brief introduction to the Talmud at large before diving into the text with Tractate Berakhot, page 2, and a meditation on the meaning of time, why you might want to think twice before you Netflix and chill, and how all these rabbinic strictures can help us make sense of our modern, messy lives.

Take One is Tablet's Daf Yomi podcast, reading one page of Talmud a day. For past episodes, click here. Today's Daf Yomi, Berakhot 3, tells us a curious story about Rabbi Yosei Ben Halafta, who lived in the second century CE. Not wanting to say his prayers while traveling, he enters an abandoned ruins and prepares to pray in peace, when a series of mystical events unfold that teach him a few valuable lessons. Why was Yosei visited by the prophet Elijah? And what does their conversation teach us about living in a world that's profoundly broken and constantly feeling like you're falling short of your goals? Listen and find out.

Today's Daf Yomi pages, Berakhot 4 and 5, begin with a king fretting about his sins and soul. He is King David: No stranger to all matters of transgression, the king nevertheless takes stock of his attempts to live righteously and worries about any possible future wrongdoings. Unorthodox co-host Stephanie Butnick joins us for a conversation about what men in the #metoo era might learn from King David, and about the Talmud's approach to suffering. Always wondered why bad things happened to good people? Listen and find out.

Today’s Daf Yomi pages, Berakhot 6 and 7, raise a strange and wonderful question: Does God pray? And if so, what does the Almighty ask for? Because the rabbis believed God prayed for nothing more than not losing His temper with us, His misbehaved children, we asked the show’s producer, Josh Kross, a long-time stay-at-home dad, to offer his perspective on what mothers and fathers here on earth can learn from our Heavenly Father about keeping your cool and being a good parent. Want to know what God commands you to do next time your kids are being annoying? Listen and find out.

Today’s Daf Yomi pages, Berakhot 8 and 9, begin with a thorny statement: If you don't visit your local synagogue, you're an evil neighbor. It sounds a bit gruff, but when you consider the identity of the man who passed this judgment—a former gladiator moved by lust to become one of the Talmud's wisest and most celebrated rabbis—things start to fall into place. Want to meet the legendary Reish Lakish? Curious about why freedom can only be achieved when everyone is free? Listen and find out.

Today’s Daf Yomi page, Berakhot 10, introduces us to one of the Talmud's most formidable—and only—women. Her name is Beruria, and she delivers a wise and passionate lesson to her husband, the famed Rabbi Meir, teaching him the true meaning of compassion. Want to learn the true meaning of mercy?  Listen and find out.

Today’s Daf Yomi page, Berakhot 11, begins with a loopy parable about beards that's really about something much bigger: No strangers to disagreement, the rabbis wanted to take some time and teach us all how to have a principled, respectful, and enjoyable argument. Which, frankly, is a lesson we can all use these days. So how can we fight without getting nasty? Listen and find out.

Today’s Daf Yomi page, Berakhot 12, raises a thorny question: What happens if you're at a party, say, and reach for the Budweiser, and say the appropriate blessing for beer, but then realize you've grabbed the Chardonay instead? Do you need to switch up your blessing? The question may sound confusing, but producer Josh Kross helps us arrive at an environmentally friendly meditation on why it's important to be mindful about what you eat. What does the Daf have to say about going green? Listen and find out.

Today’s Daf Yomi page, Berakhot 13, brings up the complicated topic of intentionality. In other words: Is it enough to just follow all the commandments, or do you have to really mean it in your heart of hearts? We're joined by Shira Hecht-Koller, director of education of 929 English, who helps us unpack the intricacies of being fully present, no matter what it is you do. How do you direct your heart to the right place? Listen and find out.

Today’s Daf Yomi pages, Berakhot 14 and 15, tackle a difficult question: What's the correct order of doing things in life, from serving God to handling our earthly affairs? Shira Hecht-Koller, director of education of 929 English, returns for a close reading of a complex Talmudic disagreement that leaves us with unexpected clarity about the relationship between learning, teaching, and doing. Why should we never opine freely before we're absolutely sure we understand the thing we're opining about? Listen and find out.

Today’s Daf Yomi pages, Berakhot 16 and 17, deliver a delightful discovery: Having concluded their prayers, the wise rabbis of the Talmud were often in the habit of uttering a few additional, and very personal, prayers of their own. What would such a modern day invocation be like? Mark Oppenheimer, co-host of Tablet's popular Unorthodox podcast, joins to deliver a meditation on this question. What can we say these days to begin and repair the world? Listen and find out.

Today’s Daf Yomi page, Berakhot 18, asks a haunting question: What role do the dead play in the world of the living? Are they whispering to us as we pass through cemeteries, or are they removed in a realm of their own? Mark Oppenheimer, co-host of Tablet’s popular Unorthodox podcast, returns to talk superstition, premonitions, and the afterlife. What is our relationship with the departed? Listen and find out.

Today's Daf Yomi page, Berakhot 19, asks a loaded question: What happens when religious observance clashes with personal dignity? Rabbi Dovid Bashevkin returns to guide us through everything from the complex hierarchy of the commandments to the intricacies of tearing toilet paper on the Sabbath. When does Jewish law take a back seat to basic personal concerns? Listen and find out.

Today’s Daf Yomi page, Berakhot 20, raises a difficult conundrum: Are thoughts and speech the same thing? Rabbi Dovid Bashevkin helps us parse the difference between thinking and articulating, and what role each one plays in our lives. What to do with all those thoughts and prayers? Listen and find out.

Today’s Daf Yomi pages, Berakhot 21 and 22, give us a torrent of bodily fluids, and one astonishing story that begins with great embarrassment and ends with transcendence. Rabbi Dovid Bashevkin reminisces about his mother censoring the books he'd read as a child, and takes us on a journey that begins in the gutter and ends with hope. Why did the sages pray ardently for a clean toilet? Listen and find out.

Today’s Daf Yomi pages, Berakhot 23 and 24, bring up one of the most controversial prohibitions to emerge from Talmudic discussion: The idea of kol ba'isha erva, meaning that a woman's singing voice is as sexually alluring as her nakedness. It's why observant women aren't permitted to sing in mixed company, and so naturally we asked one of our favorite singers, Chazan Basya Schechter, to join us and reflect on what this prohibition meant to her, growing up religious and eventually becoming both a cantor and the leader of one of the leading Jewish music groups working today, Pharaoh's Daughter. What were the rabbis thinking when they took issue with women singing? Listen and find out.

Today’s Daf Yomi page, Berakhot 25, raises a real stink. We mean it literally: In a book rich with discussions of bodily emissions, it stands out as one of our finest debates of what to do when the heart wants to transcend but the butt has other plans. Producer Josh Kross returns in an episode as rich in fart jokes as it is in insight. What can the Talmud teach us about breaking wind in front of our significant others? Listen and find out.