“Walking on a path dispels the effect of wine.”

Today’s Daf Yomi provides an analysis of the effects of drinking too much wine and the associated pain of regret. At the heart of the discussion is the myth that alcoholism and drunkenness do not exist in Jewish families. A stigma exists within our general culture related to addiction, but I can attest how much more pronounced it was growing up as a child of an alcoholic in a Jewish home.

“I am young, and you are very old; therefore I held back.”

Today’s Daf Yomi reading returns to the discussion of not just respect and deference, but entire yielding of authority to one’s teacher. It is this respect for scholarship that sets Judaism apart from many other religions, and learning is as much an intellectual as a spiritual endeavor. In today’s reading abiding by the rulings of one’s teachers becomes a matter of life or death.

“A disciple may not issue a warning in his teacher’s place of jurisdiction even on the simplest of matters.”

Today’s Daf Yomi continues the discussion on establishing an eruv in a neighborhood where one of the domiciles facing a courtyard is inhabited by someone who does not follow Jewish laws. The reading takes a turn into a discussion on deference to one’s teachers and humility in the process, regardless of how learned and accomplished someone is.

“A dog that is not in its place will not bark for seven years.”

I grew up in a suburb of Trenton, New Jersey, which my father would say was the perfect location because it was halfway between New York and Philadelphia. I always argued that I didn’t want to live in a small city sandwiched between two big ones, because it felt like being nowhere.

“Is the material you study like the lyrics of a song that you do not understand?”

There are days I think I have gone totally mad when I try to make sense of the daily portion of the Daf Yomi. It can indeed be like popular song lyrics where the words are so garbled that you have no idea what they are actually saying. The Gemara provides us with good advice today when it tells us to “investigate all aspects of the statements of the Sages, regardless of the practical ramifications.”

“The excluded area need not be so large.”

As I write this the Governor of New York has divided New York City into COVID zones. Schools and non-essential businesses in red zones will be closed and gatherings limited to ten people, including religious services. Red and yellow zones have been designated which are under lesser restrictions. I can’t help but wondering how the approximately one million people who live in these zones will stay within their borders.

“Not less and not more.”

How do we take measure of what our lives will be like from now on? I track the New York City COVID-19 positivity test rate daily and am watching it go slowly up city-wide. As of October 2nd, it was 1.7%, which is still low compared to most of the United States, but there are almost a dozen neighborhoods in the outer boroughs that are significantly higher.

“And one may measure the limit only at the level of one’s heart.”

The continued discussion in the Daf Yomi of measuring city boundaries examines on a deeper level what is the sum total of a city. Today’s text attempts to quantify it through considering open space at its edges. We are told that the total measure of a city can be eight million square cubits. The Rabbis appear to consider the dynamics of urban planning when they take the measure of Shabbat limits. 

“One generation passes away and another generation comes; but the earth abides forever.”

The celebration of Sukkot and the fall harvest and the riches we receive from the earth, should be a reminder of the deep wound in mother nature that our generation has created. The earth will truly abide forever and long after we are gone, but if we don’t put all our resources behind reversing the damage we have done so far, the legacy we leave to future generations will be one of ruin and devastation.

“It is not in heaven…nor is it beyond the sea.”

Today’s Daf Yomi continues two seemingly unrelated discussions from previous days on acquiring knowledge and taking measure of a city’s boundaries.  The two topics come together in concentric circles that overlap in the discussion of pushing limits through learning, study, perseverance, humility, and survival.

“Wealth gotten through vanity shall be diminished; but he that gathers little by little shall increase.”

Today’s Daf Yomi portion is an exuberant celebration of learning. It brings me back to my days in college when I would sit on the floor of the library in the literature section and pull book after book off the shelf in total euphoria from the discovery of the great American poets. It is also a reminder of the humility that comes from scholarship and learning.

“We are like a finger in a pit with regard to forgetfulness.”

Today’s Daf Yomi reminded me of how fortunate I am to have studied with teachers when I was young who were not always kind, but intellectually challenging. It was through their rigor of critical analysis that I was able to find my voice. There were times when I was a young graduate student that I would return home in tears after having a carefully crafted poem torn to shreds. But I learned to be tough, withstand criticism, and keep pushing harder not for the perfect word or sentence construction, but for the most honest expression of what I wanted to communicate.

“If you turn away your feet.”

Today’s reading opens with a familiar parable from Rabbi Meir: if one negates an eruv in one city that he originally established without identifying a new one in a city that he may be traveling to, he is like the person who moves a donkey forward by walking behind it and pulls a camel ahead by leading from the front. In other words, he is pulled in both directions and is left without a spiritual residence on Shabbat.

“My residence is at the trunk of the tree.”

Sometimes it is remarkable how life mirrors each day’s Daf Yomi reading. I know that it is neither a coincidence nor providential, but rather the result of how I look at the world differently than I would have before I started this journey through the vast Talmud. Each day I find some relevancy in the text because I am making new and meaningful connections.

“The measures are not fixed, but rather change in accordance with the person in question.”

I have not taken a subway since early March; this is mostly because I have nowhere to go, and also because I envision New York’s Transit System as a moving petri dish. I miss the submersion underground, the lights of the oncoming trains and the magical emergence a few moments later in a different part of town.

“This teaches that one should not rely on these principles.”

Today’s Daf Yomi is a reminder of the importance of community and how for better or worse, our neighbors impact our world. This is true even during a pandemic – and especially during a pandemic – when a small nod in the hallway of a high-rise apartment building between neighbors who are masked up goes a long way toward civility. This is true even when we stand six feet apart and getting on an elevator together requires a risk calculation of whether it is worth it to stand on our little circles in the moving box in order to save a few minutes, or if we should wait for the next elevator in order to be the sole inhabit of the space.

“Flowing rivers and streaming springs are like the feet of all people.”

Reading today’s Daf Yomi portion reminded me of why I feel so at home in Judaism. It is the religion of my ancestors who were Rabbis in Lithuania and I can sometimes feel their spirit within me. I identify with a culture that is all about questioning and searching for answers and debating every issue from the inside out. This journey through the Talmud, and certainly the current Tractate, is all about dissecting every molecule of every issue in the most minute detail.

“The entire world drinks from the waters of the ocean.”

During this week between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur which is also Climate Week, I have been thinking about the earth and how we need as human beings to give back some of our personal space to the trees and land and sky and ocean and rivers. We are facing both a climate and a heath catastrophe, due to how we have lived without care for the planet over the past decades.

“Establish a human partition for him.”

Today we are presented with a story of how a group of people came to the aid of Nehemya who inadvertently went beyond his Shabbat limit. The lesson behind the story is not what is seemingly on the surface, but it resonates with how people can help each other during times of distress. Nehemya was so engrossed in his studies that he kept walking and walking while he was trying to solve a problem and ended up outside his Shabbat limit.

“Who said those teachings, and delivered them from one place to the other?”

Today’s Daf Yomi reading takes us around the world and back on a magic carpet or perhaps through the Talmud’s version of the internet cloud. The journey is not exactly through the entire world, but between two towns in ancient Babylonia in an impossible passage of time. We learn that the consequences of staying in one place or becoming mired in shallow, swampy water can result in a more stringent Rabbinic ruling than if one is moving through the open sea.