Welcome to the Daily Daf Differently. In this episode, Dr. Joshua Kulp looks at Masechet Moed Katan Daf 14.

Today’s daf is the first daf of the third chapter, a chapter which is concerned mostly with the laws of mourning. The passage upon which I focus today deals with the issue of standardization of halakhah. When an activity has been prohibited in order to steer people’s behavior in the right direction does the prohibition still apply when there is no such concern. Specifically, the Talmud addresses the issue of shaving/cutting hair during the festival. This is usually prohibited because the rabbis wanted people to get their hair cut/shave before the festival, so that they could look good from the beginning. But what if something happened to prevent the person from going to the barber before the festival, something out of his control? Can he go during the festival? And what will people say?

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

This podcast is a collaboration with The Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem.