Take One Daf Yomi

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.

Today’s Daf Yomi page, Eruvin 95, has Tefillin on the mind (and on the arm). Rabbi Mordechai Lightstone returns to shed light on this most ancient and still most potent of all spiritual technologies. Why did the Lubavitcher Rebbe promote the wearing of Tefillin so passionately? Listen and find out.

Today’s Daf Yomi page, Eruvin 94, gets down and intimate: What, it asks, happens when your courtyard opens up onto the public domain? Andrew Marantz,  staff writer for the New Yorker, joins us to talk about the things we do online, and whether we can still expect a shred of privacy on social media and elsewhere. Are our metaphors to blame for our failure to see the Internet for what it truly is? Listen and find out.