Daf Reactions: Lighting Up The World With Insights From The Talmud With Miriam Anzovin

 

What do ancient Babylonian rabbinic debates, Millennial feminist commentary, and Lord of the Rings analogies have in common? They all collide in the incredible work of Miriam Anzovin, a content creator and self-described huge Jewish nerd. In our latest interview, Miriam shares her journey from a formerly Orthodox, deeply shy young woman to a viral sensation who is making the dense, 2,711-page Babylonian Talmud accessible, joyful, and deeply personal.

In this piece, we explore how Miriam’s Daf Reactions project—her daily, heartfelt, and comedic video responses to her study of the Talmud—is breaking down historical barriers, giving voice to forgotten women in ancient texts, and helping thousands reclaim their Jewish identity. We also touch on her personal, cathartic experience navigating both secular and religious divorce, and how ancient conversations about divorce echo modern struggles with power and coercive control.

Dive into this fascinating world where ancient text meets modern internet culture, and discover how Miriam Anzovin is truly lighting up the world with insights from the Talmud.

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Listen to the podcast here

 

Daf Reactions: Lighting Up The World With Insights From The Talmud With Miriam Anzovin

Welcome to the show. We are very excited to take some time to talk with Miriam Anzovin. Miriam is a remarkable individual, and I am just very excited for the conversation that we are going to have today. Thank you, Miriam, so much for being with us.

Thank you so much for inviting me. I am delighted to be here with you both.

Let me tell the world a little bit about Miriam before we get started. Miriam is a content creator and a self-described Jewish nerd. She is a storyteller and an artist who puts ancient discourse in direct communication with modern internet culture, pop culture, and current events. In the Daf Reactions Project, she shares her practice of daily study of the Babylonian Talmud in the Daf Yomi cycle from the viewpoint of a formerly orthodox, now secular, millennial feminist.

In Jewish lore reactions, she explores her favorite epic characters and stories from the incredible extended chain of imagination that is the collective narrative world-building of the Jewish people. Her videos are her authentic reactions with commentary, both heartfelt and comedic, centering Jewish joy. Miriam exists at the intersection of Sephora and Sefaria. In her own words, she also exists rent-free in some people’s minds.

Miriam, we are just very excited to have you, and I will just note for the folks that are tuning in and that have been following the Consilium Institute show that Miriam and a prior guest that we had, Lisa Fishbayn Joffe, talked with us about different and historical aspects of secular divorce than Jewish Orthodox divorce. Miriam, we want to hear about your life experience as well as the professional work that you do in sharing Jewish joy with the world. Thank you so much for being part of our conversation.

 

 

Thank you so much for inviting me.

I, too, am thrilled that you are here. I met you earlier this year and had an opportunity to learn from you. It was in such a joyful and unintimidating way for content that can be deep and heavy, and often, many people do not understand it, whether Jewish or not. This language can be convoluted. I will start with the Sefaria and Sephora. I think you were making a reference to makeup, and I think even that was like just one word, and then the Daf Yomi piece. I think it’s important for people to even understand those two words and what you’re saying. Why don’t we start there, and then we can jump into a deeper conversation?

Defining The Talmud & Daf Yomi

Daf Yomi is the practice of learning the entire Babylonian Talmud. I will explain what that is for folks who do not know. The Babylonian Talmud is the oral Torah. Jews believe that we received the Torah, the five books of Moses, at Mount Sinai. That is what we read in synagogue every week. In addition to that, there is a belief that there was an oral tradition of laws and practices that came down to us and was transmitted verbally, one generation to the next.

Unfortunately, for everybody, the Roman Empire happened. For these teachings not to be lost because of Roman occupation and dispersing the Jewish people around the world, people had to write them down. These things that had been transmitted from teacher to disciple all of these years then had to be written down.

That is what is called the Mishnah, which was codified around the year 200 CE. There is something called the Gemara, and that is debate, discussion, and analysis of everything in the Mishnah. That is hundreds of voices talking over time and space. There are all these rabbinic interpreters and thinkers called the sages, and they discuss everything. They discuss what is in the Mishnah, and they discuss what is in their real day-to-day lives.

They talk about everything under the sun. Some things you wish they did not talk about. Some things you are like, “I want to hear more.” The Mishnah and the Gemara together, plus additional commentary added over centuries of time, that is what the Talmud is. I like to describe it as an ancient Babylonian rabbi on Reddit. People have this mistaken idea that it is a book of laws, but it is not. It is a book of conversations.

You get to encounter this person’s opinion, and you understand why they are coming to that conclusion about how to do something Jewish, how to practice, what to believe, and how to believe. They have to bring sources from the Torah to prove why their interpretation is correct. Somebody else is going to say, “I do not believe that because this is my interpretation.” There are a lot of arguments, but they are considered to be arguments for the sake of heaven, trying to get to the thing that matters the most in the conversation.

The nature of those discussions and arguments is what makes the Talmud so appealing to me because there is usually not a right way. There is a variety of voices that are displayed here. It is a multi-vocal text over a lot of different times and spaces. That makes it really fascinating to those of us who are learning it right now in the current era. We get to time travel back and see what was happening in these conversations as people figured out how to make Judaism, this religion and culture, that has been focused in the land of Israel, which is now Israel/outside that region.

How they had made that religion into a portable religion because, thanks again to Rome, we had to. They’re trying to figure out stuff. We, to this day, are trying to figure out stuff. Sometimes it is the same stuff, and that is what makes it absolutely fascinating. The times I’m like, “This is an ancient idea. I’m uncomfortable encountering it,” are equal to the number of times I’m like, “This is actually a modern idea that we’re still talking about to this very day.” Daf Yomi is the practice of learning one double-sided page of the Talmud.

There are two sides to every page, side A and side B, every single day. Everyone usually begins on the same day, and the whole process takes seven and a half years to complete. Those of us who began in the new cycle, which began January 5th of 2020, are almost six years in, which is absolutely mind-blowing to think about. That’s what Daf Yomi means, and the Talmud is.

That is super helpful. The Yomi is the day, if I’m not mistaken, and the Daf is the content?

Daf is a page, and Yomi is the day.

Basically, that’s your daily take. Maybe you could talk to us a little bit about how this occurred during the pandemic when you got into this. I do not want to describe what that experience was like for you, but maybe you can describe it for us and why and how this evolved into what it is today.

Digital Engagement & Pandemic Learning

A lot of it does have to do with the pandemic, in particular, in what I do. What I do now, this has been my life for the past almost four years, is I take what I am learning that day, and I know there is something that I want to talk about, I want to tell people about. Something I might be struggling with. Something I found really fascinating. Just something that really speaks to me.

I talk about what that was and react to the page of what I have learned that day. I have this series called Daf Reactions. That helps me internalize what I am learning. It is often very dense material and can be very difficult to get through and process. I decided to start filming myself doing this about two years into the pandemic. When I started learning Daf, meaning the cycle, we all started on the same day, and that is the fun of it.

I react to the page of the Talmud I’ve studied that day. I have a series called Daf Reactions, which really helps me internalize what I’m learning. Share on X

We are all on the same page. No matter where you go in the world, everybody is doing the same page. The pandemic happened shortly thereafter, and so we had to use online tools to learn. Learning with our Chavruta, our study partners online through Zoom, and using online tools, listening to podcasts about the Daf. These were all really helpful things.

There was also this internet culture that had popped up around this. People would share memes that they had made about that day’s learning. They would write haikus. There are a whole bunch of ways that people were engaging in a very creative way with what they were learning to help them retain the knowledge and take ownership of this learning.

Was this something that took off for a lot of people in a different way, the whole seven-year cycle thing during the pandemic, people got creative because they needed to, because they were isolated? Was this always part of the allure of the way that people were learning the seven-year cycle?

It is a relatively recent thing. I know in the last cycle, there were people who tweeted about the Daf. It had been something that was growing as a way to engage with it, but really, the irreverent, reverent nature of online funny discourse about the Talmud, which is something that I would describe my content as being, feels like it really got going with this cycle.

I think perhaps it was because of the nature of you all online, so we all had to find ways of engaging with it like this. It was not like there was a massive height leading into the process. People who are coming off a seven-and-a-half-year stretch of learning were excited because it is a huge accomplishment.

I remember reading an article at the time when they finished the previous cycle, the folks that have been doing it filled the stadium with all these men in black hats, but there was one guy dressed as Where’s Waldo, and I absolutely loved that. The reason I decided to do Daf Yomi in the first place is that I have had a very good Jewish education.

I’m very lucky in that, but the Talmud was never something that I learned. In part because of your point, it is intimidating. I also did not feel like growing up when I went to a religious school. It was not necessarily something that was for women. It was not like, “No, you cannot do it,” but it was not something we were expected to do. There’s a lot of that. Historically speaking, it has been a very male space.

To your point about the Reddit culture of the Talmud, I’m assuming that these are men who are having this conversation about their God-given names or not.

The men?

Yes.

Addressing Gender & Misogyny In Ancient Texts

The men are always given names because one of the teachings is to always cite who you are learning from. You attribute your teachings. “I learned this from so and so, and I read it from so and so.” That’s how they track where ideas come from and are able to compare notes about them. The men get names. Rav Sheshet, Rabbi Yochanan, Reish Lakish, whatever it happens to be, they get names.

Sometimes women get names, and sometimes it is just so-and-so’s wife or so-and-so’s daughter. Something I like to do in the videos is if they do not have a name, I give them one. For the video, it’s usually a woman I respect for some reason, and I am giving this unnamed woman a name. All of us have struggled to some degree with the inherent sexism of being in a text that is primarily male voices.

They are often talking about women, but no woman has a voice in those conversations. That can be really tough, but that’s not to say women are not the Talmud at all. They are. One of my favorites is Beruriah. There is also Yalta. There is an incredible range of women whom I greatly admire. In fact, I learn primarily from female Talmud scholars. You have to make sure those unnamed female characters do not get left out.

You have to make sure that those female characters—the unnamed ones especially—aren’t just left without names. We have to remember them as real human beings, because they were. Share on X

We have to think of them as real human beings because they were. It can be very difficult to spend all this time with male sages and their opinions. Sometimes you brew them, sometimes you are like, “I will fight you in the parking lot over this hot take that you have.” That’s why my videos are called Daf Reactions because they are my personal reactions to what I am encountering. It’s not just me trying to say verbatim what it is. It’s like, what does it mean to me as a learner?

I love that. Bringing the conversation sort of like shifting it a little bit to the voices women have in various places, particularly as we talk about divorce and courts where women’s voices are or are not heard, Julie, as a judge, I certainly would be able to try me on some of this as well in a different way. I know we have had conversations before about your experience in court, both in rabbinical court and in civil court. I was wondering if you would be willing to share a little bit about that process and how this experience you’ve had may inform that.

Personal Experience With Jewish & Secular Divorce

To give you a little background, I was raised in a Ba’al Teshuvah family. A family that becomes more Orthodox Jewish over time. I was raised quite religious, and one of the things that eventually started to become untenable for me was when I learned about Agunot. Agunot are women who are in dead marriages. They are stuck married to a man who will not give them a Jewish divorce, thus not being able to move on with their lives because technically they are still married in religious court, but in religious court still considered to be their spouse.

What I’ve learned about this has disturbed me. I was Orthodox at the time. I was in my late teens. This was when I was really kind of both very into Judaism. I loved it so much. I love it to this day so much. This is what I’m doing with my life. This was a real struggle. How could I believe in a religious system where women could never be on the courts that adjudicate divorce?

How could I be part of something where the man is the only one who can initiate a divorce? This was very difficult. This is part of the thing that began to pull me away from orthodoxy is recognizing this misogynistic structure within something that was actually important. A lot of people talk about Jewish marriage, but not as many talk about Jewish divorce. I understand why. No one wants to, but it’s really very important.

For a lot of different reasons, not this one particularly, but I had a loss of faith in my early twenties, and I moved away from anything really that Jewish. It was only through learning Talmud that I came back to my own different new sense of Jewish identity. During that time, my early twenties, I got married at the age of 24. I was no longer religious. I was, however, very young, and I will say for anyone who was tuning in to this and who was in their twenties, I just highly recommend not getting married in your twenties. I can’t stress this enough.

I know you think that this person is the one, and maybe you’re right, but you could be wrong. If you’re wrong, that’s a big pickle. Just like really think about it, really think about it. Once it’s a lot easier to get into a marriage than it is to get out of that. Not just in Judaism, but in civil court as well. I was married for nine years, but I did not have a “Jewish wedding.” We had a chuppah, that’s the canopy that’s over us, and we smashed the glass and all those things, but we had no ketubah.

That’s the written marriage document. I had thought that because I didn’t have a ketubah, if I ever was gonna get divorced, I wouldn’t need a get. That is the Jewish divorce document, a get. Life happens, things do not go you planned, and it turns out you cannot remain married to that person for a lot of reasons. In my case, it was an abusive marriage. To the point where I can’t even really remember the person that I was during that marriage.

It certainly wasn’t this person who sits before you having this conversation. I hadn’t started learning talent. I hadn’t done any of the things. I wasn’t an online person at that point. I was a person who was deeply shy because my ex-husband would tell me that I was good at nothing and had no aspirations, had no dreams, had nothing. It was really a fresh start. I had to start from scratch. We separated in October of 2018. It’s a very full circle moment. We separated, and my mom, who is still an Orthodox woman, said to me, “What about going to the Beidim?”

That’s the Jewish court. “What about getting a get?” I was like, “I don’t think I need one. I don’t have a ketubah.” She pointed out to me that that was technically incorrect. She was right. One does not need a ketubah to require a get in a Frustrating. Both my husband and I were Jewish. Technically speaking, if I did not get a get, some people in our community would still consider us married.

Both my husband and I were Jewish. So technically, if I didn’t get a get, some people in our community would still consider us married. Share on X

There was no way in hell, no way in Gehenom, that’s Jewish hell, that’s I was going to be linked with that man for the rest of my life. I will say this. In America, it is quite different. We have separate legal systems for the secular and Jewish parts of life. In Israel, for example, they do not have secular marriage and divorce. Each religious group has its own courts for those types of things.

Technically speaking, while it may not matter here as much for people who are not Orthodox, it’s a deep issue for people who are in the Orthodox community here in America. In Israel, it doesn’t matter if you are Orthodox or not. You still have to go through the baiting system, which is a big red flag to me. That’s why there are so many.

If you have a Muslim divorce or a Christian divorce, you go through they go through their own.

They go through their own, which is like a holdover from the Ottoman Empire situation. Even though I was not Orthodox at that point when during any of my marriage, actually, but certainly not during the divorce part, I was like, “I’m gonna do this. I want to do this. I don’t want there to be anyone who finds me to be still connected to that person who I am still technically in a sense “owned by,” because I can’t move on with the rest of my life.

I want to be able, if someday I were to remarry another Jewish person, I’d like to be able to do that. I just wanted to be completely free in every sense.” I reached out to the local Beit Din here in Boston, where I live, and they were quite good. I will say that not every Beit Din is quite good. For those who might be tuning in, who are Jewish, I always want to recommend some resources to folks who might be going through this and may not know where to turn. There is a Yelp for Batei Din that you can go to.

It’s called RateMyBeitDin.com. I really encourage you to do this. I love the group that runs it. They have reviews for Batei Din, what you can expect, how they treat the women in the scenario, how responsive they are, and they also offer training to Batei Din so they can get better in these areas, and you don’t necessarily feel as bad in this process, or it’s not dragged out as much as it could be. If you’re looking for a Beit Din, go there. I really recommend it. I also recommend the International Beit Din. They’re absolutely wonderful. I went, and I had an okay experience. Before I went to the Beit Din, I went and got my civil divorce.

That was the last time I saw my ex-husband in person. As part of the agreement, the judge told him, “Within 30 days, you should appear in front of the Beit Din so you can start her religious divorce process.” That’s exactly what happened. I was in communication with the Beit Din and my lawyer, so I put those two together so they can make sure to craft the language in such a way that it makes sense for the civil court and would make sure that he took the step of going to religious court to grant me my get.

The onus was on him to do that.

The Ritual Of The “Beit Din” (Jewish Court)

I couldn’t. There was no way for me as a woman to be like, “I’m giving you a get.” That was all the question. That was off the table. He needed to start the process. The actual ritual itself reflects this. When I went, I requested for a representative to be him instead of him be there in person, because I don’t want to see that. Which is an option. If you are in a bad marriage where it’s not going well, and for a lot of reasons, you don’t want to be in the same physical space as the person you’re getting divorced from, I would recommend looking into that.

The person representing my ex-husband was there. The get had already been written out on a special piece of parchment in a special way by a sofer, a scribe. I was standing there in front of the three men. You need three people to make a Beit Din. Three men in a Beit Din, of course, and an Orthodox one. They were all quite lovely, I will say. They were really lovely. We went through the process, even though I will say, you can bring another woman with you, so you feel better.

I was just like, “I just want to get this over with. This is the last thing that I’m going to do in this marriage. This is it. I don’t care.” I went. They go through the process. Part of it is the person representing your husband or your husband puts the scroll in your hand, and you catch it, and you bring it to yourself. You put it under your arm. You symbolize that you’re taking it. I remember doing quite a dramatic catch for comedic effect, and they all laughed.

This was just like such a great feeling. I’m like, “Yes, this is a weird ancient ritual, but we’re all laughing about it, and I’m going to be free.” In the end, they take the get back from you, actually. They score it with a knife to make sure that nobody else has used this to divorce somebody else. You can’t use this to bait and switch somebody else’s wife. They keep it, and they give you a receipt. No one can take that. That’s in a safety deposit box. It’s very official.

That was sort of the end of that process. It took several months from our separation, six months. That’s short. Some women wait years. Some women wait forever. That’s the real scary part of this. I had it very easy. It was not a difficult process for me at all. I know women who have been trapped because their husbands will not give them the get at all.

In your civil court process, you had an agreement from him. That was the key to being able to get the get and to have an enforceable way to make sure that if he didn’t do it, there would be contempt of court or some other consequence.

It’s legally tricky because you can’t compel somebody to give you a get, even though you should be able to compel them. You have to be very careful with how you word it, which is why I made sure that the Beit Din was in communication with my lawyer so that everything was phrased appropriately. That is exactly why the judge mentioned it during the civil divorce. I felt a sense of relief because I didn’t feel like it was just me saying it. The judge is saying it. The judge is saying it, and he should do it.

It’s legally tricky because you can’t compel someone to give you a get, even though you should be able to. You have to be very careful about how you word it. Share on X

It’s making me wonder, there have been times when I felt like there are all sorts of rituals in life for marriage, for death, for somehow with divorce. Court is sort of a ritual, but it doesn’t carry the same kind of social consequence, I guess. It doesn’t feel that it’s private. It is public, but it’s not something you invite people to. Neither is the Beit Din, but I guess what I’m wondering is whether or not either of them felt more or less healing or somehow was the process something that had closure for you in a way that was better or worse?

Even though, legally speaking, the secular court, the civil court, was the end of the marriage. I felt this cathartic moment more at the Beit Din, to be honest. Maybe it’s because I knew I was so close to it, it was like so close to freedom. This was the last thing, literally the last thing that I had to do. Also, because in many ways, this was one of my biggest fears. I was getting rid of that fear, too. The fear of being trapped in that way.

The fear of being looked at as his possession in a sense. This felt so right, even though it’s just me and a group of men, and they’re all up there, and they’re in their hats and their beards, and it’s very intimidating and so on. Also, they were quite nice to me, which is not always the case for everybody. Again, go to RateMyBeitDin.com. I will say that afterwards the rabbi took me aside and he said, “This is actually a good day for you. This is a great day. This is a day that you can actually celebrate. It’s the first day of the rest of your life.” He was right.

That really was the first day of the rest of my life. Now he did caution me, “Don’t go out with any kohanim,” which is priests in the Jewish tradition, because they can’t marry a divorcee. I was like, “Okay.” Other than that, he was like, “This is a great day for you.” For me, that was a very cathartic moment. Even though I was completely secular, there’s something so deeply Jewish in everything about me that it needed to happen. I felt elated.

In your description of like catching the get, but in scoring it, those kinds of things that are very visceral and physical, I think, are elemental to rituals in general. When you were describing that, it sort of felt to me like that was an interesting difference, I guess, to have that interaction with a court.

I will say, it was not until years later when I got to the tractate in the Talmud all about divorce, years and years and years later. I was like, “That’s where all these things come from. They’re talking about how to hand the parchment to your wife.” This is really a question, and I absolutely love them for asking this question. “What if she has a dog and the dog catches it? If she owns the dog, is that like handing it to her?”

I’m like, “This is absolutely amazing.” They’re having these discussions. At the time the Talmud was put together, there was no need for the woman to accept that you divorce her, end of story. Later on in Jewish history, the woman had to accept, which I appreciate. They’re having all these conversations, all these interesting questions about how to have divorces, what that looks like, what you can and cannot do, what those rituals should and should not be, what is the symbolism here, what is the law, what are the parts of this?

It just really gives you an idea of how rituals like this form. It wasn’t entirely formed in the Talmud, but you see how it grows over time from the Talmudic conversations that I find so fascinating. I was able to look back and be like, “That’s why they do that. That’s why they cut it with a knife. That’s why they called me a million times to ask me every permutation of my name, because they have to make sure a 100 % me and this get can never be accidentally given to somebody else.” All these things made sense because I started learning Talman.

That’s fascinating. I also think you said something earlier about the Aguna. You just can never get that get. Also, about how some things seem so current, and some things are so ancient. It makes me think about the fact that in Massachusetts, legislation was just passed this year on coercive control as a part of being able to gain a restraining order in court. That was a legitimate reason to be able to gain control. With the Laguna crisis, there’s certainly a lot of manipulation and other things that go on. It’s ecclesiastical in that sense. It’s like the more things change, the more they stay the same. That’s sort of a fascinating way that you contextualize things in your storytelling.

There is a story that I really love. I love revenge stories. I should say this is a fictional story. It was written a thousand years ago, and various permutations of this story pop up around the Jewish diaspora. It has staying power. Briefly, I have a video all about this, by the way. If anyone wants to watch the video. It’s called Jewish Lore Reactions, Ride or Ashmedi, parts one and two.

It’s adapted from this story called the Tale of the Jerusalemite, or, briefly, this Jewish man has all these adventures and ends up accidentally in the realm of the demons, who in Judaism are not like demons in Christianity. In fact, these demons spend all their time praying and worshipping God and learning Torah. When they’re not doing other demons’ stuff, it’s really fat. I could talk about this for a really long time.

That’s not what this episode is about. In the story, in order to gain power, this man marries Ashmedai, king of the demons, his daughter, the princess. She loves him, and they have a kid together. What do you know? He already had a wife, a human wife, whom he left as an aguna. Way back in the day, the word aguna referred to whether your husband was lost at sea and you didn’t know if they was alive or dead.

Right now, it’s more like that man doesn’t want to give you a get, and he just won’t because he wants to extort you for money or whatever messed-up thing, messed-up coercive control thing he’s doing. At the time of the story, really, in one sense, meant somebody who had really, truly did not know what happened to their husband. He’s going on this venture. He marries the daughter who deserves so much better.

Her name is Ufrut because we’re going to name the women. Even when they’re demon women. We named the women. He gets up and abandons her and their son, and demands money from her. She takes him to court, to the Beit Din. The demon princess takes her trash human husband to the Beit Din, and they vote in her favor. They rule in her favor, but he still won’t do it. He still won’t go along with it. He won’t divorce, or he won’t free her.

It ends with her strangling him to death. This again is fictional. Is it cathartic? I’m thinking to myself, this story is a thousand years old. We’re still struggling with this exact thing a thousand years later. They were talking about it then, and we’re still talking about it now. Unfortunately, we can’t strangle people. That’s not allowed because that’s murder. The point is, who was really the “monster” in that story? It’s not the demon princess. It’s the man who keeps his wife chained to him forever.

We can’t keep you here all day, although I feel like there’s so much I want to say. I think either earlier in this conversation or before, you’ve talked a little bit about the interplay between science fiction and Talmud or Judaism. I wanted you to just touch on that a bit, because I think it’s such a fascinating concept analogy. If you could take us there, I would be grateful.

Synthesis Of Pop Culture & Jewish Identity

In fact, I will give you another video that you can include if you would like. This pass, this is just an example. Yes, I am a massive nerd. I love sci-fi. I love fantasy. I often talk about the fact that when I was like four years old, my father, blessed memory, read The Lord of the Rings to me, and how formative that really was.

At the same time, I was forming my Jewish identity. In my mind, that Venn diagram is just a circle. It’s like Tolkien, Torah. It’s a circle. Recently, we had the holiday of Rosh Hashanah, one of the Jewish New Years, and it fell on the, I guess, Gregorian calendar date, we would call it, which is September 22nd. In The Lord of the Rings, that’s a very important date. It’s the birthday of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins. I just have to ask, are any of you Lord of the Rings?

Yes.

I’m amongst my people. What I did in honor of the fact that these two holidays overlapped. These two holidays of a special magnificence, which overlapped that same day, is I made a video explaining Rosh Hashanah practices and traditions entirely in token terms. It fits so well. I will just give an example. The idea of teshuva, that is, repentance or returning, and it’s something that we’re supposed to do right before the high holidays, right before Rosh Hashanah.

We ask forgiveness for other people if we have done wrong by them. We also ask forgiveness as a community. We try to make things right. That’s an idea that’s perfectly embodied in the character of Boromir. Boromir goes to this whole thing where he wants to take the ring. Sorry to any audience who are not Lord of the Rings people. I’m sorry. Go read the books, come back after, and then keep playing this. He wants to take the ring from Frodo in order to save his city, to save Minas Tirith.

That’s not a bad thing. That’s a fine thing. The ring is also a perfect analogy for the idea of the Yetzer Hara in Judaism. That is the thing within each one of us. There’s the Yetzer hara and the Yetzer hatov, the bad influence and the good influence. It could be selfish influence instead of evil, depending on how you want to phrase it.

In The Lord of the Rings, the ring is a perfect analogy for the Yetzer Hara in Judaism—the “evil inclination” within each of us. It represents the pull of selfish or harmful influences, while the Yetzer Hatov represents our good inclinations. Share on X

It’s the thing that makes us make selfish choices. Maybe there’s a good reason that we want to do it, but it definitely plays upon that and twists everything to be bad. Boromir has listened to his Yetzer hara, which is, in fact, the ring, and he tries to take it from Frodo. He has to do Shuvah. He asks for forgiveness. He sacrifices himself. Spoiler alert for anyone else who’s seen the books or movies.

I don’t know who that is. Boromir passes away because he’s killed by orcs. He’s sort of vindicated. He knows that he has done wrong and tries to make amends by saving Marion Pippin from the Uruk-hai before he passes away. He also has his own personal shofar in the form of the horn of Gondor. That’s just a few minutes’ example of how these things can overlap.

One of the things that I’ve loved about this conversation and the work that you’re doing, Miriam, is that it really demonstrates how you can take learning and teaching and ancient thoughts and ideas and information and have that be part of your own journey of self-discovery. It seems like you’ve been on that journey really your whole life, from talking about four years old and learning about the Lord of the Rings, but also throughout the time when you were married and after, and figuring all of that out.

I imagine that a lot of the work that you’re doing now in terms of your DAF reactionaries podcasts and videos really is helping other people find that information accessible and usable in their own lives. How is that synergy, that connection, working for you at this point in your very amazing story?

A very strange story. I’m the first person who knows it. It’s been a weird journey. More like a quest. I’m just a slightly younger Gandalf. Very few things make me happier than when someone tells me, often it’s a woman, not always, but often it’s a woman, tells me maybe they send me this message privately, maybe they post it under a video in the comment section.

They say, “I never thought I’d be able to learn this, but I just signed up for a Talmud course.” “I never thought I could do this. I never thought it was for me. I thought it was going to be boring, or I used to study it.” This is sometimes more for men. “I used to study it, but it wasn’t interesting. You’ve reignited my interest in it.” Now they’re getting something out of Talmud with a slightly different approach because sometimes Talmud is taught in a way, historically, I think that’s very rote.

The Talmud has historically been taught in a very rote way. Over time, it became calcified—focused on “so-and-so said this, so-and-so said that”—leaving little room to actively debate, discuss, or truly feel what we’re learning. Share on X

At a certain point, it became calcified. Instead of this active debate and discussion that is so central in the Talmud itself, it became like so and so said this and so and so said that. There isn’t enough room to actually feel things about what we’re learning. It’s okay to feel some type of way about what you’re learning. If you’re upset that a woman doesn’t get a name, you’re allowed to feel something.

It’s also antithetical to the history that it would be calcified. This is really a tradition of the Russians and how you’re doing it. That and the fact that for you, this journey has been one of such extraordinary growth, it seems, and that you did it on the heels of a really traumatic life experience and have been able to sort of like take, I don’t want to use something, but I will, lemons to lemonade. You really moved yourself in just incredible ways. I can’t thank you enough for that conversation, but the amazing work that you’re doing.

Reclaiming Ownership Of Jewish Identity

Thank you for saying that first. Secondly, lemons are my favorite food, actually, a fun fact. This works so well, just lemons to more lemons. I would say this. When I started doing this, I didn’t think anyone would ever see it. I had five people tops. I was doing it so I would remember things better. I was going to do something really creative, but everybody was making videos. It was the pandemic. I didn’t think anyone would see it.

Maybe five other people who like me were millennial women doing this for the first time, or just folks who were encountering it and trying to wrestle with it and figure out how to meet it as a modern person and an ancient text. I was like, those folks might like it. It turned out to be so much more than that. What I can say is that this, yes, I was raised Jewish.

Yes, I worked in Jewish nonprofits because what else was I going to do with a degree in Judaic studies? Nothing. The time that I have felt the most sense of Jewish community has been as this community grew around this content, both folks who are doing Daf Yomi, doing Talmud, who like my videos, who are finding inspiration in that and other amazing stuff folks are making online around Talmud and Jewish learning in a fun, irreverent, reverent way, as I mentioned before, just who are taking a new approach to it and finding how can I make this applicable to my life now?

How can I make this learning personal? What can I take away from it that’s going to change my life? Learning Talmud has changed my life so profoundly that I do not even remember the type of person that I was before I started doing this. I’m an introvert. I’m a very shy introvert, but this has made me into something else.

Your presence is extraordinary.

Thank you.

It’s given me a sense of ownership over my own life, my own choices, and my own expression of Judaism that I would not trade for the world.

You can see it. You light up yourself, but you’re also lighting up the world with this. I really want to thank you so much for sharing your worldviews with us and talking about this with us, and continuing the conversation another time.

Whatever form you use to express what you’re feeling and learning, I encourage you to engage with the text artistically. Share on X

This was so fun.

Thank you. One other question, please, for people who want to find you online, who want to do the same self-directed learning that you’ve done in the Talmud, how can they find you?

You can find me on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Bluesky, Facebook, Mastodon, and Threads. I got them all at Miriam Anzavin. You can also search the #DafReactions to pop up any of my content there. In addition to watching my videos, please do follow me online, but if you want to learn, I really recommend Sefaria, which is the best. I learn at Sefaria every single day. It’s a phenomenal website. It’s the digital library of all these Jewish texts, including the Talmud. Thus, you will not have to purchase it.

Sign up for the daily emails from My Jewish Learning. They have great summaries by incredible scholars like Dr. Sarah Ronis, who is absolutely one of my favorites. If you can, find somebody to learn with. Learning with a chavruta, a study partner, is a traditional way of learning, but it’s your friend, and you can have a lot of fun by doing it. Most important of all, whatever it might be, short-form video is my way, but whatever form you have to express what you’re feeling and learning, I encourage you to take up an artistic form of engaging with the text.

Love that. Do it, and you remember it.

Miriam, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us on our show. We look forward to continuing the conversation soon, I hope.

Thank you. This was an absolute joy.

Same. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

 

Important Links

• Miriam Anzovin
• Miriam Anzovin on TikTok
• Miriam Anzovin on YouTube
• Miriam Anzovin on Instagram
• Miriam Anzovin on Bluesky
• Miriam Anzovin on Facebook
• Miriam Anzovin on Mastodon
• Miriam Anzovin on Threads
• Rate My Beit Din

 

About Miriam Anzovin

Miriam Anzovin is a content creator and huge Jewish nerd, storyteller, and artist, putting ancient discourse in direct communication with modern internet culture, pop culture, and current events.

In The Daf Reactions Project, she shares her practice of daily study of the Babylonian Talmud in the Daf Yomi cycle from the viewpoint of a formerly Orthodox, now secular, Millennial feminist.

In Jewish Lore Reactions, she explores her favorite epic characters and stories from the incredible, extended chain of imagination that is the collective narrative world-building of the Jewish people.

Her videos are her authentic reactions, with commentary both heartfelt and comedic, centering Jewish joy. Miriam exists at the intersection of Sefaria and Sephora. And, also in some people’s minds, where she lives rent-free.