Take One Daf Yomi

Today’s Daf Yomi pages, Berakhot 35 and 36, begin a long and intricate discussion about food and what blessing ought to be said over what fruit, vegetable, or grain. It’s a terrific reminder of why it’s so important to watch what you eat, both physically and spiritually, and it drove the show’s host, Liel Leibovitz, to meditate on going kosher and having to give up his most favorite food: bacon. Why is meaning better than meat? Listen and find out.

Today’s Daf Yomi page, Berakhot 34, is all about Teshuvah, or return. Rabbi Mordechai Lightstone, the social media editor of Chabad.org and the entrepreneur behind Tech Tribe, returns to tell us why the most difficult and flawed life experiences can serve as spiritual rocket fuel. Why did the Talmud suggest that those who have done Teshuvah are preferable even to the purest among the righteous? Listen and find out.

Today’s Daf Yomi, Berakhot 33, features a story about a righteous person doing battle with a terrible snake. But as our guest, Jordan B. Gorfinkel—renowned comic book creator and the genius behind both the illustrated Passover Haggadah Graphic Novel and D.C. Comics’ Birds of Prey, soon to be a very major motion picture—explains, the story lives on through the generations, appearing as a major plot point in the most recent Star Wars film. What did Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa teach Rey Skywalker? Listen and find out.

Today’s Daf Yomi page, Berakhot 32, tells us a strange story: God, the rabbis recount, thanked Moses for no less a miraculous feat than breathing life into the Almighty himself. Rabbi Mordechai Lightstone (known on Twitter as @mottel), the social media editor of Chabad.org and the entrepreneur behind Tech Tribe, joins us to discuss what we ordinary humans can do to serve God in the same way, and why we should all be lamplighters in this world. What can we learn from Moses? Listen and find out.

Today’s Daf Yomi pages, Berakhot 30 and 31, contain a grim pronouncement: Too much laughter makes you frivolous, which is why you should wipe that grin off your face and focus on Torah and good deeds. Could that really be the prescription from which emerged Groucho Marx, Mel Brooks, and Amy Schumer? Comedian Judy Gold joins us to break down one hilarious scene and make sense of the Talmudic view of laughter. Why did the rabbis cap off a wedding with a rousing song about death and dying? Listen and find out.

Today’s Daf Yomi pages, Berakhot 28 and 29, tell a story of an awkward meeting between two rabbis, one wealthy and imperious and the other a pious blacksmith. Feeling snubbed, the poorer rabbi rebukes his colleague for knowing very little about how hard Jewish lay leaders have to work to keep the community vibrant. Jackie Congedo, the director of the Jewish Community Relations Council in Cincinnati, joins us for a conversation about what we can do to empower those who dedicated their careers to Jewish life. Why are we still paying not enough and demanding too much of the men and, mostly, women who staff our communal organizations? Listen and find out.

Today’s Daf Yomi page, Berkahot 27, introduces an interesting category: the Talmid Chaver, a Torah scholar who is no longer merely his rabbi's student yet not yet a leading light in his own right. What's it like to be just a few feet from stardom? We asked Kurt Fuller, one of Hollywood's finest character actors and the star of such cult classics as Wayne's World and Ghostbusters II, to help us reflect on the toll of being so great at your craft and yet not as widely known as some of your colleagues. What can the Talmud teach us about movie stars? Listen and find out.

Today’s Daf Yomi page, Berakhot 26, takes prayer seriously. Do we pray to replicate the sacrifices offered by the priests in the ancient Temple, or are we simply mimicking the ancient rituals begun by our Patriarchs, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob? And should prayer, then, be carefully regulated and orchestrated, or left up to each one of us to practice as we see fit? Andrew Rehfeld, the President of Hebrew Union College-Hebrew Institute of Religion, the Reform movement's premiere theological seminary, joins us to grapple with these questions. How to balance tradition with personal passion? 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.

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.