Welcome to the Hundred and Nintieth episode of Daily Daf Differently. In this episode, Rabbi Noah Bickart looks at Masechet Eruvin Daf 35.

According to the Rabbis, an item is either prohibited or it isn’t. You can either pick it up and use it or you can’t. We don’t have to concern ourselves with thinking about weather or not the use to which I now want to put an item is its normal one or not. But R. Eliezer and R. Nehemiah want us to think not about the ontology of objects, but about the experience of using them.

Rabbi Noah Bickart is currently working on a PhD in Talmud at JTS, He and his family are living in Jerusalem this year enjoying the academic culture of the National Library, Cartoons Dubbed into Hebrew, and Houmous.

The opening and closing music for this podcast is Ufros from The Epichorus album One Bead.

Welcome to the Hundred and Eighty Ninth episode of Daily Daf Differently. In this episode, Rabbi Ethan Linden looks at Masechet Eruvin Daf 34.

If the Talmudic rules about food in a deep cistern tell us anything it is this: there is a rabbinic Shabbat and a biblical Shabbat. What do we do in the space when one has begun and the other has not? What does this space tell us about the nature of Shabbat and nature of the rabbinic project?

Rabbi Ethan Linden is the rabbi of Shir Chadash Conservative Congregation in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is the author of the (made-up) book: Tractate Mardis Gras: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Parades. Prior to coming to New Orleans, Ethan was the Assistant Director of Camp Ramah in New England and the Rabbinic Advisor for the Student Conservative Minyan at the Harvard Hillel.

The opening and closing music for this podcast is Ufros from The Epichorus album One Bead.

Welcome to the Hundred and Eighty Eighth episode of Daily Daf Differently. In this episode, Rabbi Ethan Linden looks at Masechet Eruvin Daf 33.

Sometimes it is hard to see the forest for the trees, and on this daf about trees it is even hard to see the trees. A referenced debate between Rabbi Yehudah Ha-Nasi and the sages is a jumping off point for a conversation about how certain interpretations and conversations become part of the rabbinic canon.

Rabbi Ethan Linden is the rabbi of Shir Chadash Conservative Congregation in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is the author of the (made-up) book: Tractate Mardis Gras: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Parades. Prior to coming to New Orleans, Ethan was the Assistant Director of Camp Ramah in New England and the Rabbinic Advisor for the Student Conservative Minyan at the Harvard Hillel.

The opening and closing music for this podcast is Ufros from The Epichorus album One Bead.

Welcome to the Hundred and Eighty Seventh episode of Daily Daf Differently. In this episode, Rabbi Ethan Linden looks at Masechet Eruvin Daf 32.

Who can we trust? That is the question of this daf. If we ask someone to do something for us, can we assume it is done? Perhaps the circumstances matter, or perhaps we can always assume that people we have tasked with a mission will perform the task. Or maybe we ought not to trust too much, lest we disappointed in the result.

Rabbi Ethan Linden is the rabbi of Shir Chadash Conservative Congregation in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is the author of the (made-up) book: Tractate Mardis Gras: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Parades. Prior to coming to New Orleans, Ethan was the Assistant Director of Camp Ramah in New England and the Rabbinic Advisor for the Student Conservative Minyan at the Harvard Hillel.

The opening and closing music for this podcast is Ufros from The Epichorus album One Bead.

Welcome to the Hundred and Eighty Sixith episode of Daily Daf Differently. In this episode, Rabbi Ethan Linden looks at Masechet Eruvin Daf 31.

Have you dreamed of using your pet dromedary to deliver food to an agent who will then use that food to make an eruv for you? At some point we have all had this thought. On today’s daf, we wonder, along with the rabbis, if that sort of dream is possible. Can we? Yes we can.

Rabbi Ethan Linden is the rabbi of Shir Chadash Conservative Congregation in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is the author of the (made-up) book: Tractate Mardis Gras: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Parades. Prior to coming to New Orleans, Ethan was the Assistant Director of Camp Ramah in New England and the Rabbinic Advisor for the Student Conservative Minyan at the Harvard Hillel.

The opening and closing music for this podcast is Ufros from The Epichorus album One Bead.

Welcome to the Hundred and Eighty Fifth episode of Daily Daf Differently. In this episode, Rabbi Ethan Linden looks at Masechet Eruvin Daf 30.

We make use of legal fictions in Judaism all the time. We sell our chametz on Passover, and we carry on Shabbat in places wherein we would usually be forbidden from doing so by means of an eruv. But maybe these legal fictions are a problem. Maybe we shouldn’t be pretending quite so much. On this daf, the debate about legal fictions breaks out, with Beit Shammai’s Washington Generals going up against Beit Hillel’s Harlem Globetrotters.

Rabbi Ethan Linden is the rabbi of Shir Chadash Conservative Congregation in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is the author of the (made-up) book: Tractate Mardis Gras: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Parades. Prior to coming to New Orleans, Ethan was the Assistant Director of Camp Ramah in New England and the Rabbinic Advisor for the Student Conservative Minyan at the Harvard Hillel.

The opening and closing music for this podcast is Ufros from The Epichorus album One Bead.

Welcome to the Hundred and Eighty Fourth episode of Daily Daf Differently. In this episode, Rabbi Ethan Linden looks at Masechet Eruvin Daf 29.

It can be dangerous to eat an onion. This may not seem like the greatest starting out point for a theological discussion of prayer and God’s protection, but it turns out that it is. This is why the Talmud is great.

Rabbi Ethan Linden is the rabbi of Shir Chadash Conservative Congregation in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is the author of the (made-up) book: Tractate Mardis Gras: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Parades. Prior to coming to New Orleans, Ethan was the Assistant Director of Camp Ramah in New England and the Rabbinic Advisor for the Student Conservative Minyan at the Harvard Hillel.

The opening and closing music for this podcast is Ufros from The Epichorus album One Bead.

Welcome to the Hundred and Eighty Third episode of Daily Daf Differently. In this episode, Rabbi Ethan Linden looks at Masechet Eruvin Daf 28.

Does the fact that I like to eat paper make paper into food? If I love unripe apples does everyone else have to love them too? Do the nutty Jews of Babylonia get to decide what constitutes a valid food for an eruv? Listen in and find out!

Rabbi Ethan Linden is the rabbi of Shir Chadash Conservative Congregation in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is the author of the (made-up) book: Tractate Mardis Gras: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Parades. Prior to coming to New Orleans, Ethan was the Assistant Director of Camp Ramah in New England and the Rabbinic Advisor for the Student Conservative Minyan at the Harvard Hillel.

The opening and closing music for this podcast is Ufros from The Epichorus album One Bead.

Welcome to the Hundred and Eighty Second episode of Daily Daf Differently. In this episode, Alyssa Gray looks at Masechet Eruvin Daf 27.

The mishnah at the bottom of 26b opens with a general statement: Everything (food) may be used to establish an eruv or effect a shittuf mavo’y except for water and salt. Rishonim disagree as to what type of eruv the mishnah is referring to. For its part, the Gemara is interested—as is its wont—in probing the mishnah’s term “everything.” The Bavli sugya contains a puzzlement, which critical Talmudic analysis might help explain.

Alyssa Gray, J.D., Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Codes and Responsa Literature at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York. She has written extensively on many topics in Talmud and Jewish law, and has taught and lectured widely in the United States, Israel, Europe, and South America.

The opening and closing music for this podcast is Ufros from The Epichorus album One Bead.

Welcome to the Hundred and Eighty First episode of Daily Daf Differently. In this episode, Alyssa Gray looks at Masechet Eruvin Daf 26.

The Exilarch consults a rabbi to ensure that he is permitted to carry food and other meal necessities from his house to an abvarneka (small structure with seating) in his orchard. One rabbi sets up reed fences so as to render the orchard “enclosed for residential purposes,” and thus a permitted place in which to carry freely on Shabbat, but then another took down the fences, and two other rabbis even gathered up and took away the reeds! The bemused Exilarch’s wry response is another window for us into the rabbis’ anxieties about these complex laws.

Alyssa Gray, J.D., Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Codes and Responsa Literature at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York. She has written extensively on many topics in Talmud and Jewish law, and has taught and lectured widely in the United States, Israel, Europe, and South America.

The opening and closing music for this podcast is Ufros from The Epichorus album One Bead.