I got an email this morning from my college roommate and longtime friend who said: “Time for you to get back to your blog.” (You reading this Larry?) So, its Friday morning; the house is still quiet; I’ve finished my second cup of coffee; The TV is in the other room and the news can wait as I consider his “advice” to find my way back to you.
I don’t have a good reason I’m willing to share as to why I have stopped writing for these many months. So I’ll just start again by introducing to those of you not familiar with it this big initiative called “Daf Yomi”. On MyJewishLearning.com these are the words of introduction:
“Are you interested in joining the world’s largest book club?
Daf yomi (pronounced dahf YOH-mee) is an international program to read the entire Babylonian Talmud — the main text of rabbinic Judaism — in seven and a half years at the rate of one page a day. Tens of thousands of Jews study daf yomi worldwide, and they are all quite literally on the same page — following a schedule fixed in 1923 in Poland by Rabbi Meir Shapiro, the founder of daf yomi, who envisioned the whole world as a vast Talmudic classroom connected by a global network of conversational threads.”
I’m participating mostly through the My Jewish learning emails I get every day because it is concise, relevant and interesting. Sometimes I head over to Sefaria.org to read the actual text and get enticed to get lost in the minds of the Rabbis who probably were somewhat A.D.D. since they rarely stay on topic and wander associatively rather that literally. But this morning the topic was prayer – yea I bet you are saying what else would the Rabbis talk about – well – stick around – you could be very surprised.
Back to two thousand years ago and the Rabbis discussion of what happens if you have prayed your daily prayers already but find yourself in a congregational setting and they have not begun their prayer practice yet. Rav Shumuel says: “If they (you) can innovate within [the prayer] in some way, then they should go and pray again, but if not, they should not pray again.” In my words: Try to find something new in everything you do. To stick with Rav Shmuel and the setting way back in Babylonia, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to change the prayers you say but if you can’t find a way to let them speak to you differently then maybe you should step this one out.
And this isn’t just about prayer. It’s about the way we approach many of life’s disciplines, from the stuff we do in the gym to the way we express our feelings, to the books we read, the work we do, the writing of this blog. So I’m back trying to renew myself and these words and looking to connect to all of you.
PS – Daf Yomi began again on January 5th, 2020. I know there is a lot of stuff in your inbox but just for the sake of expanding your horizons – check it out. It is never too late to start again. Here are some accessible Daf Yomi websites.
https://www.tabletmag.com/tag/daf-yomi
https://www.sefaria.org/daf-yomi
https://www.dafyomi4women.org/daf/
rabbiunplugged 