Clik here to view.
Daf Yomi: How Modern Jews Misinterpret 'In the Language of Men'
Literary critic Adam Kirsch is reading a page of Talmud a day, along with Jews around the world. This month marks an anniversary for Daf Yomi readers: It has been six years since we began studying the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Six Years of Farts, Magic, and Misogyny
What does the Talmud say about commemorating an anniversary? Something in great and elaborate detail, no doubt, perhaps touching on the necessary benedictions, suitable fabrics for table cloth, and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
'Daf Yomi': The Talmud as Rube Goldberg Machine of the Mind
Literary critic Adam Kirsch is reading a page of Talmud a day, along with Jews around the world. This week, Daf Yomi readers began a new tractate, Menachot, which continues the Talmud’s analysis of the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Daf Yomi: Use Right or Left Hand When Making Ritual Offerings?
Literary critic Adam Kirsch is reading a page of Talmud a day, along with Jews around the world. This week, Daf Yomi readers continued to follow Tractate Menachot’s discussion of the proper way to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Daf Yomi: Salt and Sacrifice
Literary critic Adam Kirsch is reading a page of Talmud a day, along with Jews around the world. The list of ingredients for a meal offering is found in the Torah in Leviticus 2: “And when one brings a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Daf Yomi: Finding Meaning in Calligraphy
Literary critic Adam Kirsch is reading a page of Talmud a day, along with Jews around the world. One of the pleasures of Daf Yomi is that you can never be sure what subject the next week will bring....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Daf Yomi: Strings Attached
Literary critic Adam Kirsch is reading a page of Talmud a day, along with Jews around the world. Over the last weeks of fall holidays, Daf Yomi readers continued to explore Tractate Menachot, which is...
View ArticleClik here to view.
'Daf Yomi': There's No Business Like Showbread Business
Literary critic Adam Kirsch is reading a page of Talmud a day, along with Jews around the world. In the early chapters of Tractate Menachot, the Talmud focused on the portion of the meal offering that...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Daf Yomi: The Origins of the Omer
Literary critic Adam Kirsch is reading a page of Talmud a day, along with Jews around the world. This week’s Daf Yomi reading, in Chapter Six of Tractate Menachot, focused on a particular type of meal...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Daf Yomi: The Uncertainty of Rituals Recreated From a Destroyed Culture
Literary critic Adam Kirsch is reading a page of Talmud a day, along with Jews around the world. One of the things that makes studying Talmud difficult is that the text takes a lot of prior knowledge...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Daf Yomi: Why 'Tradition' Is the Talmudic Rabbi's Trump Card
Literary critic Adam Kirsch is reading a page of Talmud a day, along with Jews around the world. As we have seen over the course of Tractate Menachot, sacrifices made in the Temple involved exact...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Daf Yomi: The Showbread Must Go On
Literary critic Adam Kirsch is reading a page of Talmud a day, along with Jews around the world. In Exodus 25:30, God commands the Israelites to bake “shewbread”: “And thou shalt set upon the table...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Daf Yomi: The Other Temples
Literary critic Adam Kirsch is reading a page of Talmud a day, along with Jews around the world. As Daf Yomi readers completed Tractate Menachot this week, we were in for a surprise. From the beginning...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Slaughterhouse Shrive: Forgiving the Jewish Butchers
Literary critic Adam Kirsch is reading a page of Talmud a day, along with Jews around the world. This week, Daf Yomi readers began Tractate Hullin, the third tractate in the division of the Talmud...
View ArticleClik here to view.
'Daf Yomi': Slaughterhouse Rules for Gentiles and Pagans
Literary critic Adam Kirsch is reading a page of Talmud a day, along with Jews around the world. In this week’s Daf Yomi reading, the rabbis continue to inquire about the conditions of valid slaughter....
View ArticleClik here to view.
'Daf Yomi:' Ritual Slaughter and Intentional Acts
Literary critic Adam Kirsch is reading a page of Talmud a day, along with Jews around the world. As Daf Yomi readers continued to study Tractate Hullin over the last several weeks, we saw the rabbis...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Daf Yomi: Intention and the Limits of Forbidden Idolatry
Literary critic Adam Kirsch is reading a page of Talmud a day, along with Jews around the world. Tractate Hullin is premised on the idea that animal slaughter is a religious act. This is obviously true...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Better Treyf Than Sorry
Literary critic Adam Kirsch is reading a page of Talmud a day, along with Jews around the world. Over the last six years, Daf Yomi readers have seen that the Talmudic rabbis were expert in a wide...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Womb Raider
Literary critic Adam Kirsch is reading a page of Talmud a day, along with Jews around the world. American lawyers have a saying that “hard cases make bad law.” Laws are supposed to be framed broadly...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Offspring Fever
Literary critic Adam Kirsch is reading a page of Talmud a day, along with Jews around the world. The first four chapters of Tractate Chullin went into great anatomical detail about the correct way to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Kosher Overreach
Literary critic Adam Kirsch is reading a page of Talmud a day, along with Jews around the world. In the first several chapters of Tractate Chullin, Daf Yomi readers have encountered laws of kosher...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Impure Thoughts
Literary critic Adam Kirsch is reading a page of Talmud a day, along with Jews around the world. One of the most important subjects in the Talmud, in terms of the sheer quantity of attention devoted to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Nesting Habits
Literary critic Adam Kirsch is reading a page of Talmud a day, along with Jews around the world. Why do bad things happen to good people? This basic moral and religious problem comes up several times...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Blood and Milk
Literary critic Adam Kirsch is reading a page of Talmud a day, along with Jews around the world. Why are Jews allowed to drink milk? It never occurred to me that the question needed to be asked until...
View ArticleClik here to view.
When Does Human Life Begin?
Literary critic Adam Kirsch is reading a page of Talmud a day, along with Jews around the world. By sheer coincidence, Daf Yomi readers have recently been studying a question that is making headline...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Shalom Chaver!
Literary critic Adam Kirsch is reading a page of Talmud a day, along with Jews around the world. Since I began the Daf Yomi cycle, I’ve been wondering how accurately the Talmud reflects the actual...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Price of a Firstborn
Literary critic Adam Kirsch is reading a page of Talmud a day, along with Jews around the world. Most of Tractate Bekhorot deals with animals—specifically, the obligation to give the firstborn...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How Much Is a Jewish Life Worth?
Literary critic Adam Kirsch is reading a page of Talmud a day, along with Jews around the world. Over the last year, Daf Yomi readers have been exploring Seder Kodashim, the division of the Talmud that...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Neither Less Than X nor More Than Y
Literary critic Adam Kirsch is reading a page of Talmud a day, along with Jews around the world. One of the things about the Talmud that takes most getting used to is the way it is organized—or, as it...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Your Weight in Onions
Literary critic Adam Kirsch is reading a page of Talmud a day, along with Jews around the world. In the first chapters of Tractate Arakhin, we learned about the vow of valuation, in which one promises...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Rules of the Swap
Literary critic Adam Kirsch is reading a page of Talmud a day, along with Jews around the world. All of the laws governing vows of valuation, which were the subject of Tractate Arakhin, are derived...
View ArticleClik here to view.
If a Man Gives a Woman a Lamb in Exchange for Sex
Literary critic Adam Kirsch is reading a page of Talmud a day, along with Jews around the world. Like most of the tractates in Seder Kodashim, the division of the Talmud that deals with “sacred...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Captive Among the Gentiles
Literary critic Adam Kirsch is reading a page of Talmud a day, along with Jews around the world. It’s impossible to study the Talmud for long without learning that the ultimate punishment in Jewish law...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Sacrificial Ram
Literary critic Adam Kirsch is reading a page of Talmud a day, along with Jews around the world. Seder Kodashim, the division of the Talmud devoted to the Temple and its sacrifices, concludes with a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Ends With Benefits
Literary critic Adam Kirsch is reading a page of Talmud a day, along with Jews around the world. In the first chapters of Tractate Me’ila, whose subject is the misuse of consecrated items, the focus...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Birds
Literary critic Adam Kirsch is reading a page of Talmud a day, along with Jews around the world. The Fields Medal, the equivalent of a Nobel Prize for math, is awarded every four years to an...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Menstrual Camps
Literary critic Adam Kirsch is reading a page of Talmud a day, along with Jews around the world. This week, Daf Yomi readers entered the home stretch of our 7 1/2-year journey through the Talmud, as we...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Emission Standards
Literary critic Adam Kirsch is reading a page of Talmud a day, along with Jews around the world. The main subject of Tractate Nidda is the ritual impurity of menstruating women. But women aren’t the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Birth Control
Literary critic Adam Kirsch is reading a page of Talmud a day, along with Jews around the world. When is a fetus not a fetus? That is the question the rabbis pursue, in graphic detail, in Chapter 3 of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Girl, You’ll Be a Woman Soon
Literary critic Adam Kirsch is reading a page of Talmud a day, along with Jews around the world. Each volume of the Koren Talmud Bavli comes in a dust jacket that bears an image related to its...
View ArticleClik here to view.
One Page at a Time
I was the only one in the pediatrician’s waiting room with Tractate Yoma in one hand and my kid’s winter hat in the other. This was reminiscent of being the only one at my airport gate with Tractate...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Best Food Forward
We’re starting 2020 with our favorite combo: Talmud and food. First, Adam Kirsch reflects on completing the seven-year cycle of Daf Yomi, the practice of reading one page of Talmud each day, which he...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Take One: Berakhot 2
As Jews around the world begin a new seven-and-a-half year cycle of Daf Yomi, reading the entire Talmud one page per day, Tablet Magazine’s new podcast, Take One, will offer a brief and evocative daily...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Take One: Berakhot 3
Take One is Tablet’s Daf Yomi podcast, reading one page of Talmud a day. For past episodes, click here. Continue reading "Take One: Berakhot 3" at...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Take One: Berakhot 4 and 5
Today’s Daf Yomi pages, Berakhot 4 and 5, begin with a king fretting about his sins and soul. He is King David: No stranger to all matters of transgression, the king nevertheless takes stock of his...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Take One: Berakhot 6 and 7
Today’s Daf Yomi pages, Berakhot 6 and 7, raise a strange and wonderful question: Does God pray? And if so, what does the Almighty ask for? Because the rabbis believed God prayed for nothing more than...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Did ‘Daf Yomi’ Make Me a Better Jew?
For the past seven and a half years, literary critic Adam Kirsch read a page of Talmud a day, along with Jews around the world. “The school of Elijah taught: Anyone who studies Halachot every day is...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Talmud Adami: Adam Kirsch’s Complete ‘Daf Yomi’ Columns
From Aug. 29, 2012 to Jan. 4, 2020, literary critic Adam Kirsch read a page a day of Talmud, along with Jews around the world, completing the 13th cycle of Daf Yomi. Over that span, his columns...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Take One: Berakhot 8 and 9
Today’s Daf Yomi pages, Berakhot 8 and 9, begin with a thorny statement: If you don’t visit your local synagogue, you’re an evil neighbor. It sounds a bit gruff, but when you consider the identity of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Take One: Berakhot 10
Today’s Daf Yomi pages, Berakhot 10, introduces us to one of the Talmud’s most formidable—and only—women. Her name is Beruria, and she delivers a wise and passionate lesson to her husband, the famed...
View Article
