JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
In the Chabad yeshiva in Crown Heights, where I was a student in the early 1980s, Yiddish literature was non-existent. Sure, we spoke Yiddish in school and we read the text of the Rebbe’s Yiddish sermons, but Yiddish literature was never mentioned. Then again, we didn’t read English literature either. We studied the Torah, Talmud,…
In one of many oddball stories in the Talmud, the commentary on the Hebrew Bible, we’re told about an ancient diss: one rabbi tells another rabbi that his voice is so bad that if the Holy Temple were still standing, he wouldn’t be allowed to sing in it. As Miriam Anzovin puts it in her…
Most people who study Talmud go with the Babylonian one, and pay scant attention to its older, more difficult cousin — the Jerusalem Talmud. Sefaria, the non-profit library, released a new, online English translation of it this week in hopes that more people will delve into the challenging compendium of Jewish law. It’s free. And…
For over a decade Stephen Tobolowsky has been sharing stories. Have you heard the one about his Talmud collection? The 70-year-old actor, known for his turns as a folksy insurance salesman in “Groundhog Day” and a hapless tech sociopath in “Silicon Valley,” has written two books, hosts a podcast and is now debuting an audio…
It is just after 5 a.m. in Perth, Western Australia, when Debbie Posner logs on to the All Daf App to begin her day by studying Talmud. Despite the distance and remoteness of her location – some 11,000 miles from New York City – Posner has no trouble accessing resources to help her study one…
The story of Akhnai’s oven is one of my favorite Talmud passages to tell non-Jews, because it so perfectly captures the contrast between Judaism and the dominant understanding of religion in the West. In it, a group of rabbis disagree with God, and God, in response, smiles and states, “My children have triumphed over Me;…
The Torah demands of us: “Justice, Justice, you shall pursue” (Deuteronomy 16:20). We are not told to sit back and wait for justice to come to us. In fact, midrash in Sifrei Devarim explains that this biblical verse means that we should strive to achieve justice specifically through the finest of courts. As our nation…
In the wake of his passing on August 7, 2020, I remember Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz in conversation, as the ever youthful rebel, questioning the whole universe, with a biting sense of humour. In the Orthodox world, where clothing defines the person, he made sure to stand out as a unique creature, combining worn jeans with…
