Author: Meghan Froy

I was a big fan of the board game Clue growing up. As macabre as it might be, I enjoyed moving my token around the two-dimensional mansion trying to figure out who had murdered Mr. Boddy, where the murder had taken place and what manner of death was visited upon him.   Today’s daf also tackles […]

Next week, the world will mark a grim milestone: one year since Russia invaded Ukraine. For those of us living in Europe, the sense of crisis has long since passed. The initial flood of refugees has slowed to a trickle, and many Ukrainians living abroad have found ways to head back home for periods — to […]

Walk into Krakow’s Kazimierz district and you might think you’ve just teleported back to the shtetl. Once the center of Krakow’s thriving Jewish community, Kazimierz is one of the biggest attractions in Krakow today, a living ode to the town’s vibrant Jewish history. Full of quaint cobblestone streets, grand old synagogues and moving exhibits that […]

I’ve taken a lot of students on tours of Israel. One of the highlights has always been a trip to the Dead Sea. I can’t count the number of times I’ve stood on the shore, watching my students float on the salty water, while I hold a bag with cellphones in one hand and a […]

Last week’s Torah reading was a climactic high point in the Exodus story. God appeared before the entire Jewish people at Mt. Sinai and spoke the Ten Commandments. With deafening peals of thunder, bright flashes of lightning, a smoking mountain and the ground trembling beneath the Israelites’ feet, God’s revelation of those iconic tablets was […]

Judaism values study — that is no surprise. But it also values engagement in the world. In the Talmud, (Berakhot 35b) there is a classic dispute: Rabbi Shimon Bar Yohai says one should spend all of one’s time in Torah study, and Rabbi Yishmael says one should combine study with a worldly occupation. A later sage, Abaye, laconically […]

It’s accepted knowledge that New York City has great bagels and Los Angeles has great tacos (and celebrity sightings), right? In truth, Los Angeles has long been able to boast great Jewish food. It was with this in mind that I sat down over buttered sourdough toast, scrambled eggs and steaming mugs of hot coffee […]

I was a remote worker long before the pandemic made it a thing, but it was only last month that I really took advantage of it. Early in the morning of New Year’s Day, I boarded a plane from Connecticut bound for Mexico, where I spent a full month sleeping in thatch-roofed palapas, eating more […]

We have already learned that a nazirite vow is completed in the land of Israel because a nazir had to offer their concluding sacrifices at the Temple in Jerusalem. But does that mean they have to observe their naziritehood there, or at least some portion of it? Or can they come to Israel after their naziritehood is over, offer their […]

As we’ve learned, one who takes a vow of naziriteship in a cemetery must exit the cemetery, purify themselves and then begin their term as a nazirite. Toward the bottom of yesterday’s daf, Rav Ashi asked a question: If one took a vow of naziriteship while in a cemetery, is he required to shave or not? Ordinarily, shaving […]