Bava Metzia 104 and 105 - Exilic Cliffhangers

Today’s Talmud pages, Bava Metzia 104 and 105, contains a strange and hilarious discussion on what to do if you're wearing Tefillin but must take out the garbage. Rabbi Dovid Bashevkin joins us to find surprising meaning in this seemingly pedestrian debate, and explain why the rabbis were sending us a timely reminder about hope, resilience, and aspiration. Why wasn't the Torah given in the Land of Israel, and why should it matter to us today? Listen and find out.

Join us Tuesday, June 11 from 9 p.m. to midnight for a special event featuring Liel Leibovitz, Tablet critic-at-large Marco Roth, and special guests reading and moderating a discussion of modernist literature in the upstairs lounge of The Russian Samovar at 256 West 52nd Street in Manhattan. In the spirit of Shavuot, expect riffing on passages by Marcel Proust, James Joyce, and Virginia Woolf, as well as from the Torah. Register here.

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We think that you may also enjoy Liel's new book How the Talmud Can Change Your Life: Surprisingly Modern Advice from a Very Old Book, available directly from the publisher, or wherever you purchase books.

Listen to the Testimonies Archive, a partnership between Tablet Studios and the USC Shoah Foundation, for eyewitness audio accounts from Israel in the wake of the Oct 7 Hamas attacks.

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