How the Talmud Can Change Your Life: Surprisingly Modern Advice from a Very Old Book

by Liel Leibovitz

A witty and wide-ranging exploration of a book that has perplexed and delighted people for the Talmud. For numerous centuries, the Talmud―an extraordinary work of Jewish ethics, law, and tradition―has compelled readers to grapple with how to live a good life. Full of folk legends, bawdy tales, and rabbinical repartee, it is inspiring, demanding, confounding, and thousands of pages long. As Liel Leibovitz enthusiastically explores the Talmud, what has sometimes been misunderstood as a dusty and arcane volume becomes humanity’s first self-help book. How the Talmud Can Change Your Life contains sage advice on an unparalleled scope of topics, which includes communicating with your partner, dealing with grief, and being a friend. Leibovitz guides readers through the sprawling text with all its humor, rich insights, compulsively readable stories, and multilayered conversations. Contemporary discussions framed by Talmudic philosophy and psychology draw on subjects ranging from Weight Watchers and the Dewey decimal system to the lives of Billie Holiday and C. S. Lewis. Chapters focus on fundamental human experiences―the mind-body problem, the power of community, the challenges of love―to illuminate how the Talmud speaks to our daily existence. As Leibovitz explores some of life’s greatest questions, he also delivers a concise history of the Talmud itself, explaining the process of its lengthy compilation and organization. With infectious passion and candor, Leibovitz brilliantly displays how the Talmud’s wisdom reverberates for the modern age and how it can, indeed, change your life.

Genres: Judaism, Religion, Nonfiction, Jewish, Judaica, Philosophy, Self Help

272 pages, Hardcover

Published October 10, 2023

About the author

Liel Leibovitz is a senior writer for Tablet magazine and teaches at New York University. He is the coauthor of Fortunate Sons, Lili Marlene, and The Chosen Peoples. He lives in New York City.

Reviews

[Judy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this book up because I had little knowledge of the Jewish religion and felt maybe this would help me increase my knowledge. I read it slowly to try to absorb some of the stories and history.

Description:
A witty and wide-ranging exploration of a book that has perplexed and delighted people for the Talmud. For numerous centuries, the Talmud―an extraordinary work of Jewish ethics, law, and tradition―has compelled readers to grapple with how to live a good life. Full of folk legends, bawdy tales, and rabbinical repartee, it is inspiring, demanding, confounding, and thousands of pages long. As Liel Leibovitz enthusiastically explores the Talmud, what has sometimes been misunderstood as a dusty and arcane volume becomes humanity’s first self-help book. How the Talmud Can Change Your Life contains sage advice on an unparalleled scope of topics, which includes communicating with your partner, dealing with grief, and being a friend. Leibovitz guides readers through the sprawling text with all its humor, rich insights, compulsively readable stories, and multilayered conversations. Contemporary discussions framed by Talmudic philosophy and psychology draw on subjects ranging from Weight Watchers and the Dewey decimal system to the lives of Billie Holiday and C. S. Lewis. Chapters focus on fundamental human experiences―the mind-body problem, the power of community, the challenges of love―to illuminate how the Talmud speaks to our daily existence. As Leibovitz explores some of life’s greatest questions, he also delivers a concise history of the Talmud itself, explaining the process of its lengthy compilation and organization. With infectious passion and candor, Leibovitz brilliantly displays how the Talmud’s wisdom reverberates for the modern age and how it can, indeed, change your life.

My Thoughts:
This book just showed me how much understanding I lack. It was not a beginner book, but I'm sure others with more understanding will enjoy it more. I liked the stories of some of the scholars and their experiences. The chapters were rather long and sometimes I lost focus on what the author was trying to convey, but once again I think this is my inexperience and lack of understanding. I did learn some things and enjoyed the history.

Thanks to W. W. Norton & Company through Netgalley for an advance copy. This book will be published on October 10, 2023.

[Statia · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are many worthy quotes I highlighted and plan to recite or revisit later. Such as, “If something is truly sacred, as the Talmud tells us, you should feel it in your limbs just as tightly as you do in your heart.” There is room for improvement in the names and organization of chapter. The chapters are way too long. By the end, I was asking myself, “what is the purpose of this chapter, again?” I wish there was a line at the end that said, “if you remember only one thing from this chapter, it’s _____.”

This is not a beginner’s Judaism book. I would recommend being at least faintly familiar with the scholars or sages before reading this book. Overall, I think readers will benefit more from the audiobook because of the conversational tone. Please I hope Liel narrates it. Inexperienced Talmud students beware, but read it anyway.

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book has two major strands woven together. The first is a meta description of the Talmud and the philosophical principles behind it. It makes a good case for how the logic of the Talmud applies to dilemmas that apply to modern life.
The other part, a description of the revered sages who wrote it and their lives, didn’t appeal to me as much. They seem just as quarrelsome and peevish as any modern academic diva. Some might find that endearing but I was bored.
Worth reading but it’s not inspiring me to join a Daf Yomi.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars, really enjoyed some parts, but others felt a bit forced

[pylesjellydonut · Rating 3 out of 5]

6 days later B’’H😭

do you know when you’re really passionate about something and you’re eagerly sharing it with someone, but they don’t understand a thing you’re saying?

this is like the book version of that…a person who’s very into the talmud and clearly has a very deep understanding of it trying to simplify it for us (which is fine in theory except it just doesn’t work)

don’t get me wrong it was still helpful and i retained some information (hillel and shammai), (meir and bruriah), (akiva)

however the main points got so convoluted among all the names and information that the book got really hard to follow…. also the addition of weird unrelated stories in the beginning of each chapter ( i guess served to represent modern problems through the lens of famous people in society ) was an interesting choice by the author to say the least ……

i recommend for people who already read the talmud and want to hear it extensively applied to current issues

[Shawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful book. It is funny and playful, and yet profound and meaningful. Leibovitz makes relevant this ancient book (if you can call it that) and shows how its wisdom is important and needed for our lives today.

Leibovitz starts each chapter with some contemporary and seemingly un-Talmud (even un-Jewish) like story (e.g. the friendship of Tolkien and Lewis; the spy Aldrich Ames; Billie Holiday; etc.). But then he finds a way to draw the connections between these and the stories the Talmud tells; and then ends the chapter discussing the underlying enduring truth or deep meaning convened by both the Talmud and the contemporary story. Along the way one learns about the history and construction of the Talmud, the role it plays in Jewish life, and some of the lessons it teaches. Moreover, Leibovitz demonstrates what makes the Talmud so unique. It is not just a legal text or law book; not is it just stories and myths. And it’s not just the idiosyncratic structure of the Talmud: it’s meandering style, it’s replication of the debates and arguments of generations of Rabbis, it’s commentary on itself that is contained within its own pages. It’s all of this and more that makes the Talmud unique, eternally engaging, and meaningful.

The Talmud is able to capture something very human: we are rational beings, but also emotional and story loving beings; and it also captures the paradox of being both particularistic and universalistic (something that runs through so much of being Jewish and Jewish history). The Talmud convenes truths that are universal, but convenes them in particularistic ways of stories, parables, and disputations about arcane legal matters.

I may never actually read the Talmud (I’ve tried; it can be a slog at times), but if I do, it’ll be because of books like this.

[Alisa]

Confession: I skimmed the second half. The author is a podcast host and the chapters are written like a podcast episode, like This American Life of maybe a Malcolm Gladwell piece. It just would have been better to listen than to read this.

Each chapter begins with a story about someone from the 20th century (told in a very interest piquing way) and then transitions to a notable person in the Talmud who had a similar problem as the modern person. The connections don’t always land, but it is a nice story telling format.

I think I would have enjoyed this more if I had some background knowledge on the characters, like if I had grown up going to synagogue, and then the stories really would have popped and come alive. As it was, pretty much everyone was brand new to me and thus unmemorable. I ended up remembering the modern people’s stories more.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

While the title is a bit click-baity, the book does fulfill its purpose of providing an extremely accessible and contemporary approach to the Talmud, and introduces the reader to some of its more colorful characters and stories.

The author does an excellent job of explaining the often bizarre mash-up of highly technical legal discourse, esoteric arguments, and seemingly trivial anecdotes, demonstrating how these disparate elements together forge a whole that's more than the sum of its parts.

He also provides tie-ins to modern times that showcase the timelessness and broad appeal of the Talmud, even though a lot of it appears to be completely irrelevant for anyone other than extremely religious men studying at a Yeshiva.

[Kristin Perrine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like this book, but I'm struggling with it. I wanted to learn more about Judaism and the Talmud, so this seemed like a good book to read. It's clearly well researched and the author clearly knows his stuff. The writing style is entertaining and engaging and at times quite amusing. But the chapters are just so long, it's hard to follow the thread through the whole chapter. The author packs so much detail and depth into each chapter that the different vignettes become disjointed rather than forming a cohesive narrative. It's a very interesting book, and makes me more curious about the Talmud, but I haven't been able to finish it yet.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've listened to his Tablet magazine podcasts and read his articles, and the voice there's headlong, booming, very intellectual, but pop culture-immersed, and certainly "liberal-ish" Jewish New Yorker, enters these pages with verve, insight, lots of leaps, similar to the pivotal ones he discerns in Talmud, between seemingly disparate case studies, examples across the centuries, and surprising observations. So this record of his "daf yom" deep dives into the formidable depths of the rabbinic commentators on Torah serve fittingly to span the momentous years from the 2016 election to the near-current political, media, and moral predicaments sending many Americans haywire now.

Leibovitz leaves wisely his personal motivations for undertaking this investigation for an afterward. In seven chapters, he may start with topics as diverse as the founder of Weight Watchers, the upset in a 1942 Boston College-Holy Cross football game, the friendship of Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, the first two sections of Erich Auerbach's Mimesis, the Dewey Decimal System, Billie Holliday, amidst dispiriting fates of the sages left to fend for themselves as the Roman Empire crushed the rebellions before and after the fall of the Second Temple. Only to wind up a part far from where he began. This can excite, but after a while, disorient, leaving you woozy. It's less bracing a ride than a long haul.

I recommend that an account such as Adam Kirsch's also recent Come and Hear which tracks his trek through the tractates over 7 1/2 years, and then the self-titled The Talmud, a history (of its evolution and reception) by Harry Freedman (see my late-2024 reviews; neither of these surveys manages to avoid its own shortcomings about mapping this vast terrain), be finished before you take up the somewhat parallel Leibovitz itinerary. He doesn't go deep enough into the "Agadah" and offers only a hunt of its wide panorama. He gets so caught up in the analogies to admittedly clever occurrences drawn from other times or places that he doesn't ground his investigation in practice of the Law at all. He may hint at a return to Torah in daily life, but it's muted not rousing.

Yes, he mentions in passing one need not be Jewish to study Talmud. Yet any curious bystander, picking this book up, likely won't close it completed with any satisfaction. It falls between a guide documenting his own highlights along his path, and a report from falling deep into the weeds. As I share his tendency to freely wander, to associate disparate moments, perhaps I'm sensitive to how challenging it may be for those not already accustomed to this terrain to find one's own bearings.

[Diana · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is presented as an advice book, or maybe a self-help book but it is neither. Leibovitz organizes his material into seven chapters; each one takes up a topic that can pertain to our lives. Sometimes, he begins the chapter with a contemporary anecdote. He always provides the history of the sages who wrote in the section of Talmud to which he refers. The Talmud is huge; he springboards the reader into 7 different sections, which mostly have no connection to the previous topic.

Despite the lack of cohesion, his writing is engaging and the topics are interesting (at least to me).

[Hannah Bristow · Rating 5 out of 5]

Think this book is excellent.

Connects Talmudic stories with more recent cultural history and talks about the big lessons we can take from some of the most significant Talmudic Rabbis, about our bodies, love, friendship and our connection to something larger. Above all it works to impress upon us the idea that we are here, the future is in out hands, life is hard, we can face it, binaries are fallacies and the answer to every question is to keep asking.

No matter what you believe, this is great stuff.

[Claire Hermes · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m on a side-quest to read books from every major world religion to expand my spiritual knowledge…I had my eye on this book for a while, and was expecting a digestible book on the Talmud and modern life. I almost got that, but I felt like the chapters were very wandering and didn’t relate much to each other. Interesting content, meh delivery.

I will say, I enjoyed the stories of Bruriah and Rabbi Meir, as well as the concept of consistent reflection and questioning; I feel like I still learned something, even if there was extra bulk

[Simon Hepple · Rating 4 out of 5]

neat, easy to read book on stories from the Talmud for anyone. I liked the simplicity of the stories and the feeling that humans are falable with great stories.

It reads a little like the New Testament without the acknowledgement of just one person being the dominant theme. It really shows how amazing that time period was for Jews. Education was considered the most endeavour for society and how important it was to be getting the written form standardised.

[Ilene Goldman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm still processing the lessons of this book. I found it incredibly readable and a lovely evening companion to my morning habit of listening to Leibovitz's Take One Daf Yomi podcast in which he shares learnings from the day's daf.

We, as a people or a society, have a lot to learn from studying the Talmud, and Leibovitz scratches the surface just enough to ignite curiosity, writing in a relatable and entertaining way.

[K · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent. Had the pleasure of listening to the audiobook as read by the author. You can tell he’s on fire and in love with the material and history he writes about. I do feel the only thing holding this back from getting a 5/5 is that after chapter 6, things start to feel a little unfocused and less gripping, like too much steam has been let off before the end. All in all, fantastic read.

[Shelly Cerullo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know - this was fine. It was fine! I probably wouldn't have finished reading it if it weren't for book club, because it felt like a perfectly normal collection of essays written by an average undergraduate religious studies major who understood the text of the Talmud, with basically no insights or interesting thoughts.

[Carly Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting book and a great introduction to the Talmud, but perhaps not a good introduction to Judaism. It’s best to read this book with a solid basis in Judaism, I think. But regardless it’s well written and compelling, if a little dense at times.

[Maeve · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was fine… I don’t think I learned anything. I’m glad the Talmud changed the author’s life but I don’t think his points got across that he was trying to make. It COULD be that Jewish thinking I’d very different from western thinking and I didn’t get it??

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not really sure about how the Talmud would change my life, but this was a fun introductory text into the Talmud, its rabbis, and just some of the strange tales and debates that are contained in it.

[Jeremy Winaker · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fabulous collection of key stories that tell the history of the Talmud and rabbinic Judaism. While well-written, I found the contemporary parallels introducing each chapter to be more distracting than helpful.

[Perlie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I listened to Leibovitz read his story and it was engaging on all counts. Divided by topic rather than masechta, each chapter is a meditation on some aspect of human life that is illuminated and guideposted by the Talmud.
Highly recommend! Would reread.

[Christine Laskin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was surprised how much I loved this. What a beautiful reminder of the values everyone should hold.

[Steve Gross · Rating 4 out of 5]

More of a sermon than a historical or documentary read, but full of interesting stories and advice.

[Morgan Schultz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating, engaging, informative, and unique. I came across this book in the philosophy section of my local bookstore and it really exceeded my expectations.

[Maleah Grover · Rating 4 out of 5]

learned, in a concise was, about the Talmud in a style that was easy to read.

[Bill Dauster · Rating 5 out of 5]

A splendidly engaging romp through a series of Talmudic stories juxtaposed to more modern ones

[Devanye Hansen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really great introduction to just a few concepts in the Talmud! It's engaging, it's accessible, it's relatable -- all in all, a great read!

[Ethan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoyed the book even though I had been familiar with some of the stories. Liel does a great job interweaving stories from the Talmud with more contemporary events

[Claire · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars - an entertaining brief history of the Talmud and lessons Leibowitz has learned through his studies. It motivated me to read the past few days of Dafs!