Take One

Take One: Berakhot 54

In today’s page, an existential meditation on God, good, and evil

February 26, 2020

Today’s Daf Yomi page, Berakhot 54, raises one of the most difficult edicts in all of the Talmud: We must, it informs us, recite a blessing of gratitude when bad things happen just as we would give thanks over good things. Tablet‘s Jake Siegel, a former captain in the U.S. Army, joins us to talk about struggling with the existence of evil while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, and coming to terms with God’s role in allowing evil to persist. What blessing should we say when things get dark? Listen and find out.

Take One is Tablet Magazine’s daily Daf Yomi podcast.