Today’s text includes several discussions on lust and sexuality, with a disturbing definition of when children grow out of being minors.

Today’s discussion focuses on bathroom protocols during times of prayer.

I understand the focus in the Talmud on impurity; there were no hand sanitizers or antibiotics and disease spread rapidly.

In addition to the discussions on deriving an “a fortiori” inference through the analysis of two laws where one is stronger than the other and the opportunity to "add a little extra" when you enter a synagogue that is in the middle of a prayer that you have already said, there is an underlying theme of impurity in today’s reading.

Today’s discussion focuses on bathroom protocols during times of prayer.

I am still struggling with the Rabbi who compared women at an immersion site to “white geese” and the Rabbi who was so good looking that he thought by hanging out at the site that the women would catch one glance of him and have beautiful children.

I am having difficulty with today’s reading.

Today’s text is focused on our relationship with the dead.

Today’s folio is very dense. Rabbi Yoḥanan’s prayer reverberates wholly with me. All we really have in this life is our good name and it is all we own on earth: “A good name is better than fine oil, and the day of death than the day of one’s birth” (Ecclesiastes 7:1).

There is more in today's text on intent and concentration when we pray, which continues to serve as a reminder to live our lives with focus on what matters most: "The primary issue in this mishna is the requisite degree of concentration when reciting Shema."

We are two weeks into this Daf Yomi cycle and I have come to love this community, the support it provides and how it has assisted with democratizing the Talmud.

Today's focus on when you should pray in the morning (before you go about your business or greet others) suggests the right time to read the Talmud text is first thing in the morning.

In today's text the concept of intention (which is very modern - we need to live our lives with intention) and the mandate to say the Shema in Hebrew are interconnected.

I finally understand through today’s reading why we bow when we pray in synagogue.

Why the difference between the obligation to say the Shema if you marry a widow or virgin: “One who marries a virgin is exempt from the recitation of Shema on his wedding night, but one who marries a widow is obligated.”

I am intrigued again by another mention of the “world to come” in today’s reading.

Does anyone else find a great deal of resonance in this text: “And God said to Moses: Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh. [I will be what I will be].”

I have witnessed the decline of a parent who had Alzheimer’s Disease and forgot almost everything he had once known.

I find the idea that God prays to be able to find mercy and patience intriguing.

I am not sure what to make out of mention of the afterbirth of a first born female black cat.