Taanit No.1: Prayin' for the Rain Artwork

Interleaved: A Talmudic Podcast

Join us as we take a deep dive into a topic from the Daf Yomi, the daily page of Talmud, with modern-day Sages of Torah and the world who can draw from their unique expertise to share modern and creative perspectives on the text.

All Episodes

Interleaved: A Talmudic Podcast

Taanit No.1: Prayin' for the Rain

December 05, 2021 • Netanel Zellis-Paley • Season 10 • Episode 1

How did the Sages of the Talmud understand the connection between rain and the Divine? How do talmudic stories impart ethical values?

Dr. Jonathan Wyn Schofer is Associate Professor of Religious Studies, with affiliation in the Schustermann Center for Jewish Studies at The University at Texas at Austin. He has published work on the connections between law, theology, and ethics in canonical Jewish sources of late antiquity, including his first book, The Making of a Sage: A Study in Rabbinic Ethics. His essay “Theology and Cosmology in Rabbinic Ethics: The Pedagogical Significance of Rainmaking Narratives” is the groundwork for a chapter on drought in his second book, Confronting Vulnerability: The Body and the Divine in Rabbinic Ethics.

Special thanks to our executive producer, Adina Karp

View a source sheet for this episode here.

Keep up with Interleaved on Facebook and Twitter.

Music from https://filmmusic.io

"Midnight Tale" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)

License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)