Author: Meghan Froy

The most incredible thing about Shabbat stews is how diverse they are, and yet how unified. By the term “Shabbat stew,” I mean a one-pot meal that is prepared on Friday, and then slow-cooks through the night to provide a hot lunch on Saturday. Virtually every Jewish community around the world has one, and their […]

We learned in the mishnah on yesterday’s daf that: One who says to his wife: “You are hereby to me like my mother,” they encourage him to dissolve the vow on other grounds so that he will not (make such vows) lightly. The man’s vow implies he will not have sex with his wife, just as he does […]

In modern English, we often use the terms vows and oaths interchangeably. But as we’ve seen already in this tractate, these are two very different things.  On today’s daf, we find a new distinction between oaths and vows. The Gemara tells us that in some ways, vows are more stringent than oaths and in other ways, oaths are more […]

It may be that the most important biblical passage for our time is found in the book of Joshua: …he looked up and saw a man standing before him, drawn sword in hand. Joshua went up to him and asked him: Are you one of us or of our enemies? He replied: No! I am captain […]

Today, we encounter a teaching of Rabbi Meir about the language one should use when attaching a condition to a legally binding statement. Rabbi Meir says that any condition that is not like the condition of the sons of the tribe of Gad and the sons of the tribe of Reuben is not a valid […]

Many books of the Hebrew Bible are read in synagogue. The Torah is read in full on a yearly cycle, with one of 54 Torah portions read each week (sometimes two are combined so that the Torah is completed in the year). Likewise, selections from the prophets (haftaraot) are also read each week. Five megillot […]

Job is one of three books in the Bible which, collectively, are known as the Wisdom Literature. (The other two are Proverbs and Ecclesiastes.) Unlike the other books of the Bible which deal more specifically with the Jewish people, these deal with universal questions about justice, piety and the nature of the universe. In fact, […]

Job’s wife has no name and only a single line in his story, and yet I find her unforgettable — one of the most enigmatic characters in the entire Bible. Recall that Job’s story begins when God makes a bet with Satan that his pious servant Job will continue to be faithful even if his […]

The ideas of the Book of Job have always been challenging. How can a just God not only permit but orchestrate the terrible suffering of a truly righteous person? It is hard to get one’s head around that question. But no less challenging is the language of the book. The grammar and vocabulary go far […]

In a mishnah at the bottom of yesterday’s daf, we learn a fairly straightforward rule: A person may not say to a butcher on a festival: Weigh for me a dinar’s worth of meat. But the butcher may slaughter an animal and apportion it without stipulating a price. As has been well established by our […]