Grappling With the Talmud in the Midst of Crisis

In late 2019, I came upon an article about Daf Yomi — the practice of reading a page of the Talmud every day over the course of seven and a half years — and decided to sign up for a daily email promising to shepherd me through the text, that famously dense compilation of arguments among ancient rabbis. My wife was diagnosed with cancer a year earlier, and after grappling with big questions about mortality and fate, I was looking for a bit of spiritual direction.