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![]() Penny CaganThe Times of Israel (Blogs) |
Embed from Getty Images “One does not perform mitzvot in bundles.” If all the Daf Yomi readings were as short as the last few, I might have...
Embed from Getty Images “A change of place requires a blessing.” As we head toward the end of this Tractate, each day’s reading is becoming...
Embed from Getty Images “Will he even force the queen before me in the house?” Did you ever have one of those magical lunches with a good...
Embed from Getty Images “You shall safeguard it.” We have been on a journey since the start of this Tractate through the specifics of Passover...
Embed from Getty Images “The entire settlement of the world rests under one star.” How large is your world? The Rabbis in today’s Daf Yomi...
Embed from Getty Images “And he shall bear his sin.” Today’s Daf Yomi reading continues the discussion of the concept of a second Pesah,...
Embed from Getty Images “One must blow the dust on the path before taking each step.” Life is complicated and sometimes we don’t get the...
Embed from Getty Images The past year has been a difficult one for all of us, in so many ways. The pandemic has wreaked havoc in our lives, with so...
Embed from Getty Images “A person cannot make forbidden something that is not his.” Celebrating Passover at the time of the temple must have...
Embed from Getty Images “Take your portion and leave.” Did you ever have friends who drink inordinate glasses of expensive liquors at dinner,...
Embed from Getty Images “I choose not to be supported by you.” Today’s Daf Yomi continues the discussion from the previous day on the...
Embed from Getty Images “And I will have compassion upon her that had not received compassion.” Today’s Daf Yomi reading brings together...
Embed from Getty Images “Upon the houses wherein they shall eat it.” We have been on a journey over the last weeks involving the sacrifice of...
Embed from Getty Images “Barriers are irrelevant with regard to prayer.” We have been on a journey over the last weeks involving the sacrifice...
Embed from Getty Images The last trip I took was to London a year ago for a board meeting of a non-profit that I am involved with. I was reading at...
Embed from Getty Images “And you shall not break a bone in it” We have been on a journey over the last weeks involving the sacrifice of the...
Embed from Getty Images “It is impurity of the deep until the entire world knows about it.” Today’s Daf Yomi reading continues a discussion...
Embed from Getty Images “A communal offering is not divided.” I never knew growing up that there were two Passovers, which was probably a good...
Embed from Getty Images “The individual cannot tip the balance of the entire public.” A friend sent me today an article about a study conducted...
Embed from Getty Images “He said what was reasonable.” What is worth noting in many of the Daf Yomi readings is the length the Rabbis and the...
Embed from Getty Images “It is merely an aroma, and an aroma is nothing significant.” I have one last comment on yesterday’s Daf Yomi...
Embed from Getty Images “In fire she shall be burned.” We are presented with a disturbing discussion in today’s Daf Yomi on the execution of...
“A heart is different.” We start a new chapter today in the Talmud that is focused on roasting of the Paschal lamb which promises to be just as...
Embed from Getty Images “What has he improved.” I have a confession to make. I have a terrible sense of direction and in the days before Google...
Embed from Getty Images “We must accept this conclusion even though it is unusual.” Intention and attention are the ying and yang of the...
Embed from Getty Images “Dual intentions of these types is valid.” Since the beginning of this daily journey through the Talmud, the consistent...
Embed from Getty Images “Akiva, how can you say this.” Is there someone in your life who just gets under your skin? You try really hard to...
Embed from Getty Images “The light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold.” I find it...
Embed from Getty Images “He shall dwell alone.” Today’s discussion of impurity takes us back to earlier readings of this Tractate where we...
Embed from Getty Images Today’s discussion turns to whether one can sacrifice the Paschal lamb when the eve of Passover occurs on Shabbat. Rabbi...
“How could they walk in blood up to their ankles?” Embed from Getty Images If there has been any doubt until now that the scene at the temple...
Embed from Getty Images “He would rest his hand on another’s shoulder.” Today’s Daf Yomi reading provides a vision of an elegant ceremony...
Embed from Getty Images “Rabbi Yohanan took a clod of dirt and threw it at him In the middle of the today’s exposition on the details of...
Embed from Getty Images “For its own purpose and for a different purpose.” The concept of intention permeates many of the daily Daf Yomi...
Embed from Getty Images #Pesachim58: “Is like an ordinary Monday.” We enter a new chapter today devoted to the sacrifice of the paschal lamb...
Embed from Getty Images “And the powerful priests among them would take them by force before they could be distributed.” Today’s Daf Yomi...
Embed from Getty Images “The legal status of part of the day is like that of the entire day.” Everything has a time and place in the Talmud....
Embed from Getty Images “Counsel in the heart of man is like deep water; but a man of understanding will draw it out.” There is so much chatter...
Embed from Getty Images “Both this time and that time are one period.” We are faced with the serious consequences of climate change as...
Embed from Getty Images “In a settled area it is prohibited; in the desert it is permitted.” If I have learned anything from the past year of...
Embed from Getty Images “In all our days we have never seen that type of conduct.” Yesterday we were told in the daily Daf Yomi reading that...
Embed from Getty Images “I saw an inverted world.” I have been thinking a lot about work and how it defines us. Studs Terkel said in his...
Embed from Getty Images “For it is your life and the length of your days.” I usually can find one thing in the Talmud to write about each day,...
Embed from Getty Images “One kneads, one arranges, one bakes.” Daf sisters of the world unite. Today’s portion is for you (and our...
Embed from Getty Images “Do we say the principle: Since, etc.?” Today’s Daf Yomi returns to the principle of since which upon further...
Embed from Getty Images The matter is dependent on the owner’s particularity.” Today we are presented with a different take on intention,...
Embed from Getty Images “Two verses that come as one.” We are provided with a lesson in today’s Daf Yomi of what constitutes an analogy and...
Embed from Getty Images When I first heard about the Daf Yomi cycle it was through an article in the New York Times that reported on an event...