Making sense, maybe, of the whole daf, maybe, for a change. For the daf today lent itself to discovering a theme, though that doesn’t necessarily mean it was a unifying principle of composition…

It also drove home the point of a few days ago – the Gemara does not present its concepts and principles in a coherent “building block” manner. This text that presumes you already have confidence in the material presented on, for example, daf 48.

In terms of topics: who gets the honor of breaking bread? of leading a zimun? of washing before or after a meal? of sitting in which placement during a meal? Plus what do we say in a shiva house – and why “ha-tov ve-ha-meitiv” was once a reasonable possibility for that context.

Click here for the Talking Talmud podcast on Daf 46.

To listen: Click the link above. Or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Or join the Talking Talmud WhatsApp group, and receive the link as soon as it goes up.

Also, you can now find Talking Talmud on Facebook – we’ll begin populating that page over the course of this week (back episodes and such), and are grateful for any “like” you can show us there.