Category: Talmud Bavli

Homa’s Day in Court, featuring Noam Sachs Zion

The newest episode of The Jewish Drinking Show is now out on an intriguing Talmudic incident involving a widow demanding wine in court. Featuring first-time guest, Noam Sachs Zion, we discuss an incident involving Abayye’s widow, Rava, and Rava’s wife, about which he wrote in Wine, Women and the War of the Sexes, which is […]

Taverns in the Talmud? Featuring Professor Laura Lieber

Taverns in the Talmud? Dancing at taverns in the Talmud? Yes, this is certainly a curious topic. We don’t often think about taverns in the Talmud, but I was struck by Professor Laura Lieber’s discussion of the term בי כובי in her “Daru in the Winehouse: The Intersection of Status and Dance in the Jewish […]

The Kamtza and Bar Kamtza Episode

The 76th episode of The Jewish Drinking Show features first-time guest, Rabbi Noah Ferro. Rabbi Ferro is the head rabbi at Northern Hills Synagogue-Congregation B’nai Avraham in Cincinnati, and is a 2017 ordinee of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. Rabbi Ferro is joined by the host of The Jewish Drinking Show, Rabbi Drew Kaplan, […]

Psalms 104:15 in the Babylonian Talmud featuring Professor AJ Berkovitz

Intro An intriguing verse appears in the book of Psalms: “וְיַ֤יִן ׀ יְשַׂמַּ֬ח לְֽבַב־אֱנ֗וֹשׁ wine cheers the hearts of men” (Psalm 104:15), which is a felicitous Biblical expression, although how do the rabbis of the Babylonian Talmud use it? For the 73rd episode of The Jewish Drinking Show, Professor AJ Berkovitz joins the show to discuss […]

Women and the Four Cups of Wine at the Passover Seder

Introduction The 63rd episode of The Jewish Drinking Show features Miriam Gedweiser in conversation with Rabbi Drew Kaplan about the Talmudic inclusion of women for the four cups of wine at the Passover Seder. Guest Bio Miriam Gedwiser teaches Talmud and Tanach at the Ramaz Upper School and is on the faculty of Drisha. Miriam […]

Angels and Asparagus: Discussing a Curious Talmudic Beverage

Introduction The 57th episode of The Jewish Drinking Show features a discussion on angels and…asparagus. Featuring Prof. Mika Ahuvia, whose research includes her doctoral dissertation, “Israel Among the Angels: A Study of Angels in Jewish Texts from the Fourth to Eighth Century CE” (Princeton, 2014), so she is well-situated to discuss the curious intersection of angels […]

A Significant Rabbinic Discussion on Wine & Drinking: Eruvin 64-65

One of the lengthier discussions on wine and drinking in rabbinic literature occurs in the Babylonian Talmud on Eruvin 64-65, which happens to also be the pages of the current Daf Yomi cycle for today and tomorrow. Enjoy this introductory overview of the drinking texts on pages Eruvin 64a, Eruvin 64b, Eruvin 65a, and Eruvin […]

Yalta’s Wine-Destroying

On the newest release amongst the podcast/video episodes, Alieza Salzberg Yizhar joins the show to discuss a particular incident in the Talmud where Yalta destroys 400 jugs of wine (see below for text from the Babylonian Talmud on this incident). She teaches Talmud at the Conservative Yeshiva and courses in Jewish History and Literature at […]

How Beer Became Acceptable for Havdallah in the Babylonian Talmud

You can only use wine for Havdallah, right? That’s what the Talmudic rabbis thought…until a certain story happened. And then beer became legitimate to use for this ritual. Featuring Professor Jordan Rosenblum, the Belzer Professor of Classical Judaism, the Max and Frieda Weinstein-Bascom Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Chair of […]

Demons and the Four Cups of Wine at the Passover Seder

The 25th episode of the podcast/video series is now out! Featuring Rabbi Alana Suskin, the co-founder and co-director of the Pomegranate Initiative, as well as a senior editor at JewSchool.com, we discuss the susceptibility to demons of the four cups of wine at the Passover Seder, according to the discussion of the rabbis in the […]

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