Tablet

Producer Josh Kross is back, bringing a little light into your Saturday night social distancing.

On today’s Unorthodox dispatch, Liel prepares for a much-needed Shabbat with a joke by Columbia University professor Jeremy Dauber, an expert on Jewish humor, as well as a song by the Jewbador, Jim Knable, and a few timely words of wisdom from this week’s parsha.

“They dragged them out of their houses, and led them to their deaths, to a pit right outside town, in Zelyonke. Like cattle. They took them like cattle and then shot them. When they finished them off, the earth kept moving for a few days afterwards. Like cattle.”

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. Читать дальше...

“The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” (Roger “Verbal” Kint, The Usual Suspects, 1995)

Here in Israel, we are in semi-lockdown at the moment, with the threat of total lockdown looming. And the weird thing is that every time a high-pitched motorcycle whizzes by, our hearts stop for a millisecond, falsely anticipating the sirens to go off.

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. Читать дальше...

This week, our hosts are connecting via Zoom conference to discuss their new remote realities and read a lot of listener mail. We also hear from Tablet writer Yair Rosenberg, who composed and recorded an album of original modern melodies for traditional Jewish songs (listen to the first single, a Mumford & Sons-esque “Shalom Aleichem,” here).

Crises like the coronavirus pandemic reveal the structural weaknesses in a society. But those structural weaknesses can be recognized and repaired only if they are correctly identified.

On today’s Unorthodox dispatch, producer Sara Fredman Aeder shares an audio diary recorded over the last week as her family has been living under quarantine in Westchester, New York.