Take One Daf Yomi

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 happens when we no longer summon the courage to stand up for what we know is right. What advice might a former prisoner in the gulag offer us in modern-day America? Listen and find out.

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.