Take One Daf Yomi

Today’s Daf Yomi page, Shabbat 20, includes a famous paragraph on candle lighting we recite every Friday evening. Rabbi Rachel Ain of the Sutton Place Synagogue in New York joins us to meditate on this ancient custom and its surprisingly modern resonance. Why do we light two candles each Shabbat? Listen and find out.This episode is sponsored by the Institute for Jewish Spirituality. In this time of anxiety, Jewish-based mindfulness and meditation may the thing you need. Find out at Jewishspirituality.org/Takeone and use the code Takeone20 at checkout for a 20 percent discount.

Today’s Daf Yomi page, Shabbat 19, dives into a nautical question: Is it permitted to go a-sailing just before Shabbat? It's a conundrum that has inflamed Talmudic minds for millennia, and we welcome Lisa Ann Sandell, author and sailing enthusiast, to share her story of hi jinx on the high seas and her thoughts on taking to open waters. Did the rabbis believe sailing could ever be pleasurable? Listen and find out.This episode is sponsored by the Institute for Jewish Spirituality. In this time of anxiety, Jewish-based mindfulness and meditation may the thing you need. Find out at Jewishspirituality.org/Takeone and use the code Takeone20 at checkout for a 20 percent discount.

Today's Daf Yomi page, Shabbat 18, revolve around a strange question: Should we let our utensils, too, rest on Shabbat? Rabbi Dovid Bashevkin returns to explain why this conundrum is far from theoretical, and what it tells us about how preparation and rest are always intertwined. What can those of us who spent the last few weeks getting ready for social distancing learn from the rituals of ushering in Shabbat? Listen and find out.This episode is sponsored by the Institute for Jewish Spirituality. In this time of anxiety, Jewish-based mindfulness and meditation may be the thing you need. Find out at Jewishspirituality.org/Takeone and use the code Takeone20 at checkout for a 20 percent discount.

Today’s Daf Yomi pages, Shabbat 16 and 17, tell a dramatic story of a particularly vehement disagreement between two of the Talmud's greatest rabbis, Hillel and Shammai. When one of them loses the debate, all go into mourning. Why? And what does this millennia-old quibble have to teach us about the importance of kindness and compassion? Listen and find out.Take one is sponsored this week by the Institute for Jewish Spirituality. In this time of anxiety, Jewish based mindfulness and meditation may the thing you need. Find out at Jewishspirituality.org/Takeone and when you check out, put in the code Takeone20 for a 20% discount.

Today’s Daf Yomi pages, Shabbat 14 and 15, usher us into a discussion of a deeply complicated subject: the rules of purity. But what starts out like a seemingly esoteric topic soon grows eerily relevant in this time of coronavirus awareness: Rabbi Dovid Bashevkin joins us to explain how the Talmud's concept of transmission and infection uncannily mirrors that of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and why we should be grateful for the special place hand-washing has always played in Jewish life. Why should we always rush to scrub our hands as soon as we wake up? Listen and find out.

Today’s Daf Yomi page, Shabbat 13, revolves around a grizzly story of a pious man who studied Torah, served his rabbis, and still died suddenly at a very young age. His bereaved widow walks around from synagogue to synagogue demanding an explanation, until the prophet Elijah delivers a very thorny explanation that has to do with sexual conduct. Dr. Batsheva Marcus, a certified sex therapist, joins us to wrestle with this difficult story, and talk about how we approach the laws of nida, or ritual purity. How to read the Talmud's plethora of strictures and warnings in the modern age? Listen and find out.

Today’s Daf Yomi page, Shabbat 12, makes a strange pronouncement: If you kill a louse on Shabbat, it's as if you've killed a camel. Producer Josh Kross, an animal lover and avid meat eater, joins to discuss the difference between the animals we cherish and those we're happy to consume, and what the Talmud can teach us about environmental ethics. What's the Talmud take on mindful eating? Listen and find out.

Today’s Daf Yomi page, Shabbat 11, gives us one of the most beautiful passages in all of the Talmud."Even if all the seas would be ink, and the reeds that grow near swamps would be quills, and the heavens would be parchment upon which the words would be written, and all the people would be scribes," the rabbis tell us, "all of these are insufficient to write the unquantifiable space of governmental authority, i.e., all the considerations with which a government must concern itself and deal."Government's responsibilities and burdens is a crucial topic these days, so to get a view from the inside we welcome Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.). What is Congress doing to fight the coronavirus? Why did she take on the CDC in a questioning session that has since gone viral? And what can our ancient rabbis teach the folks in Washington? Listen and find out.

Today’s Daf Yomi pages, Shabbat 9 and 10, raise a question we're all asking right now, as so many of us are suddenly confined to our homes by the coronavirus and struggling to balance work and family: What's the best way to manage time? Warning us against trying to do too much, the wise rabbis propose a principle that calls on us to be here now and focus on what truly matters in life. What can the Talmud teach us about work-life balance in a time of quarantine? Listen and find out.

Today's Daf Yomi pages, Shabbat 7 and 8, raises a question that pierces the heart of every New Yorker: Can your home even be considered a real home if it's, you know, just too small? Stephanie Butnick, co-host of Tablet's popular Unorthodox podcast and a dweller of several very small apartments, returns to describe life with no space at all and argue that nothing says private domain more than having absolutely no privacy. What Talmudic lessons can be learned by living in a studio apartment in the West Village? Listen and find out.