Take One Daf Yomi

On today’s page, Zevachim 100, the rabbis dwell on acute mourning, a moment when grief interrupts routine, obligation, and even meaning itself. The late Norman Podhoretz offers a powerful meditation on the role of ideas and intellectual responsibility at precisely such moments of rupture. What happens when loss forces us to reconsider what truly shapes history and our lives? Listen and find out. To support Tablet and make a tax-deductible donation, click here.

On today’s pages, Zevachim 98 and 99, we encounter the rules for priests in the period of acute mourning, when they cannot offer sacrifices or partake in the ritual meat. Our teacher and friend, Rabbi Dovid Bashevkin, helps illuminate what this stage says about grief, ritual, and the human confrontation with mortality. How do we make space for loss without losing connection to life’s sacredness? Listen and find out. To support Tablet and make a tax-deductible donation, click here.

On today’s pages, Zevachim 96 and 97, the rabbis explore a case of jealousy between teachers when a promising student decides to learn elsewhere. Presidentischer Rav, Dr. Tevi Troy joins us to draw connections between this debate and famous moments of political switching in American history. How do we decide when it’s right to move on and when loyalty should win out? Listen and find out. To support Tablet and make a tax-deductible donation, click here.

On today’s page, Zevachim 95, the rabbis continue their careful discussion of how sacred garments are cleaned in the Temple. We take a Chanukah pause with a song from Nefesh Mountain, because nothing launders our hearts and our minds and makes them fresh again quite like music. When the details of ritual start to pile up, where do you turn to feel renewed? Listen and find out. Join Nefesh Mountain tonight at the Brooklyn Bowl for a very special Love & Light show! Doors open at 6pm, there's a pre-show candle lighting at 7pm, and the show starts at 8pm. Get tickets here. To support Tablet and make a tax-deductible donation, click here.

On today’s page, Zevachim 94, the rabbis debate how items stained with sacrificial blood should be cleaned, and whether leather counts as clothing in the same way fabric does. As the Gemara weighs leather’s strange status somewhere between garment and skin, it quietly nudges us to think about what leather really is and what it means to use it. If leather isn’t quite like cloth, should we treat it differently in how we wear it and choose it? Listen and find out. To support Tablet and make a tax-deductible donation, click here.