Take One Daf Yomi

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.

Today’s Daf Yomi pages, Berakhot 21 and 22, give us a torrent of bodily fluids, and one astonishing story that begins with great embarrassment and ends with transcendence. Rabbi Dovid Bashevkin reminisces about his mother censoring the books he'd read as a child, and takes us on a journey that begins in the gutter and ends with hope. Why did the sages pray ardently for a clean toilet? Listen and find out.

Today’s Daf Yomi page, Berakhot 20, raises a difficult conundrum: Are thoughts and speech the same thing? Rabbi Dovid Bashevkin helps us parse the difference between thinking and articulating, and what role each one plays in our lives. What to do with all those thoughts and prayers? Listen and find out.

Today's Daf Yomi page, Berakhot 19, asks a loaded question: What happens when religious observance clashes with personal dignity? Rabbi Dovid Bashevkin returns to guide us through everything from the complex hierarchy of the commandments to the intricacies of tearing toilet paper on the Sabbath. When does Jewish law take a back seat to basic personal concerns? Listen and find out.

Today’s Daf Yomi page, Berakhot 18, asks a haunting question: What role do the dead play in the world of the living? Are they whispering to us as we pass through cemeteries, or are they removed in a realm of their own? Mark Oppenheimer, co-host of Tablet’s popular Unorthodox podcast, returns to talk superstition, premonitions, and the afterlife. What is our relationship with the departed? Listen and find out.