Ep 24: Tiptoe Through the Talmud with Miriam Anzovin

00:00(upbeat music)

00:02Rabbinic Judaism has an oral tradition of teachings,

00:06traditions, rules, laws, however you wanna put it,

00:11that were transmitted, at least this is how it's explained,

00:14transmitted generation to generation verbally.

00:18And then what happened is the Roman Empire,

00:21unfortunately, for everybody.

00:23And I don't care that they make nice roads.

00:25I don't care.

00:27But you know-- - What about the aqueduct?

00:29I don't care, I don't care, you know what--

00:32- What else have they done for us?

00:34- Yeah, what have they done?

00:35They stole our menorah, okay, that was the least

00:37of what they did, and am I going to the Vatican

00:39to get it out of basement?

00:40I will, for anyone who wants to join me

00:42on that highly illegal heist.

00:44(upbeat music)

00:47- Hey everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

00:49- And I'm Dan Beecher.

00:51- And you are listening to the Data Over Dogma podcast

00:53where we try to increase the public's access

00:56to the academic study of the Bible and religion

00:59and combat the spread of misinformation about the same.

01:03How are things today, Dan?

01:04- Man, I'm excited.

01:06We got a great guest today, I'm very pleased.

01:09I'm going to learn a lot of words

01:11that I don't actually know and figure out

01:13what the heck they mean, not in my language.

01:17So Dan, why don't you introduce our guest?

01:19- Happily, today we're going to be talking

01:21with Miriam Ansevin, who is on TikTok

01:25because on social media is an artist

01:27is a creator across a number of different channels

01:30and in a number of different media.

01:32I know her from her very popular

01:36Daf reaction videos on TikTok,

01:39but she does so much more than that.

01:40So welcome to the show Miriam, how are you doing today?

01:44- I am so delighted to be here, Shalom, friends,

01:47to anybody listening who might be my follower,

01:49but to everybody else who is a fan of these two wonderful

01:53fans and Dan's TikTok account,

01:56I am just delighted to be here as a fellow fan.

01:59So thank you so much for having me.

02:00- Great, well thank you so much for being here.

02:03We really appreciate it.

02:03We were very excited to have the opportunity

02:06to talk to you a little bit today

02:08about things like the Talmud

02:10and the representation of women within the Talmud.

02:14But I think before we get into that,

02:16we want to hear a little bit more about your backstory.

02:19So we can understand how you're coming at the Talmud

02:23and its representation of women

02:25and your experience on social media.

02:28And you were mentioning before we got started here

02:31that you were producing, editing,

02:34hosting a podcast for a community,

02:39a Jewish community in the Boston area

02:41before they decided to corporatize

02:44and kick things over to a CEO

02:48and you were left in the wind,

02:50which then led to what?

02:53- It led to me having all of this creative Jewish energy

02:58and nowhere to put it,

03:00because in addition to hosting that podcast,

03:02the vibe of the tribe, rest in peace,

03:06I also did a lot of graphic design.

03:09I designed Hagadot.

03:11I did infographics about Jewish ideas and holidays

03:15and anything that I found fascinating about Jewishness,

03:19Jewish culture, I was able to create.

03:21I also wrote a series of comedic articles

03:25which were sort of the forebearer, if you will,

03:27of what I do now in video format,

03:31in Dafreactions and the other funny yet heartfelt Jewish content

03:34I create for social media.

03:37But yes, so what happened was I had all this energy

03:40and I had nowhere to put it,

03:42no where to put all these Jewish thoughts in my head

03:45and I had been lurking on TikTok

03:48for two years over the course of the pandemic.

03:50I'm talking right now about like December 2021,

03:55about two years and I had been learning the Talmud.

03:58I had been doing Dafyomi since January 5th of 2020.

04:02So again, I've been almost two years of that

04:05and I thought to myself,

04:06well, TikTok is a place where I learned

04:09so many incredible things about things I never knew,

04:12how other people live across the world,

04:15what their faith traditions might be like,

04:17their interests, their hobbies,

04:18incredible, incredible things

04:21that were really eye-opening to me

04:23is what I found on TikTok.

04:24And I also found a lot of humor

04:25that really supported me during that dark, dark time.

04:29So I thought, okay, I'm gonna make,

04:30I'll make some reaction videos.

04:32It'll be like a play on reaction videos,

04:34a little bit of a play on beauty influencer,

04:37kind of aesthetic, which is why I locked myself

04:40into a full face of makeup every time I record now,

04:43that was my mistake, but at the beginning,

04:45I was like, no one's gonna see this anyway.

04:47So this is just me having fun.

04:49Maybe five to 10 people who are similar to me

04:53in a lot of respects, maybe fellow millennials,

04:57fellow women who are learning the Talmud

04:59for the first time might also be wrestling

05:01and struggling with some of the ideas I was encountering

05:05and trying to rectify that

05:07with our current modern mode of thinking

05:10and I was like, okay, I will make some reaction videos

05:13and those people may get it.

05:16And I remember the first one I did

05:18was a natural fit because it was a story

05:22about someone who we would define now as a Karen.

05:26And I said, oh, this is perfect.

05:28This translates beautifully to social media.

05:31Let me just take this very old text,

05:34this very, very, very, very old story,

05:37but it fits perfectly into a modern internet paradigm,

05:41which I found as the work has progressed

05:44since that first video has been the case quite often.

05:48It quite often lends itself,

05:50and I'm not the first person to have identified this idea.

05:54It lends itself well to being discussed online

05:58because, and I'm sure we'll get into more about this,

06:00shortly, the Talmud, the way I describe it to people,

06:04it's very much like the internet.

06:06You have the Mishnah, which is a blog post, for example,

06:10and then you have the Gomara,

06:12which is the comment section and arguments

06:15and discussions and fights happening in there.

06:17And anyone who has had a comment section or been in one,

06:20sometimes you find comments that are brilliant

06:22and enlightening and sometimes you find ones

06:24that are just like, I would like to block this.

06:26So it's very akin to that.

06:28And it's also a very hyperlinked text in a way

06:31before there was such a thing before the advent

06:34of safaria.org where I learn Talmud.

06:38They offer the full Talmud for free,

06:39which I salute them.

06:41They can't see me if they're listening to this,

06:42but if they're watching on YouTube, I salute you.

06:45And it just, it really, shockingly perhaps to me

06:49at the time, 'cause I didn't know,

06:51it was a natural fit to make videos about this.

06:54So a lot of things happened between then and now,

06:57but that's how I first began.

06:59That was the genesis, if you will,

07:01of Dafreactions as a series.

07:03I'm gonna jump in here because we've already gotten

07:06several of the words that I don't actually know.

07:08I mean, I've looked them up.

07:10I do know them, but I would love for you

07:13to explain to our listeners who may not have

07:16your particular background.

07:18Dafyomi, what is that, what are we talking here?

07:22- Okay, well, let me first start with a Mishnah

07:25because there's two basic components of the Talmud.

07:28And you will understand what the Talmud is

07:29when I explain the components.

07:31So in Judaism, we have the Torah,

07:35the five books of Moses.

07:37One, you might know them as the five books of Moses.

07:40And in addition to that, however,

07:42rabbinic Judaism has an oral tradition of teachings,

07:46traditions, rules, laws, however you wanna put it,

07:50that were transmitted, at least this is how it's explained,

07:54transmitted generation to generation verbally.

07:58And then what happened is the Roman Empire.

08:01Unfortunately for everybody.

08:02And I don't care that they make nice roads.

08:05I don't care.

08:06But you know--

08:07- What about the aqueducts?

08:08- I don't care.

08:10I don't care.

08:11- What else have they done for us?

08:13- Yeah, what have they done?

08:14They stole our menorah.

08:16Okay, that was the least of what they did.

08:17And am I going to the Vatican to get it out of the basement?

08:20I will.

08:21For anyone who wants to join me on that highly illegal heist.

08:25But so what happened was Rome.

08:27And because of the Roman takeover and steamrolling

08:31of Judea and the subsequent destruction of Judaism

08:35as it was at the time surrounding entirely

08:39the physical land of Israel and surrounding the sacrifices

08:44in the temple in Jerusalem.

08:45This was the sort of basis around which all of Judaism

08:48was converged, right?

08:51The rabbis of that era, the community leaders of that era

08:55had to figure out a way to preserve Judaism

08:58and preserve these teachings.

09:00And as part of that, they wrote down these oral traditions.

09:04And that is what the Mishnah is.

09:06And I believe that ended up being compiled

09:09around the year 200 CE.

09:13I mean, this is a little wiggly.

09:15I am not, I want to state right now

09:17that I am not an academic.

09:19So Dan, if you would like to interrupt me at any point

09:22and say, actually, it was a little bit more like

09:23this time period, being please feel free.

09:26But then what happened after that?

09:30So we have that.

09:31But not everything in the Mishnah is entirely clear.

09:35A lot of it is not exactly comprehensible

09:39without additional context and additional discussion.

09:43And that is what we find in the Gomara,

09:45which is debate, discussion and analysis

09:49of what is in the Mishnah and also, you know,

09:51what is in the Torah and the Tanakh,

09:54all the Hebrew Bible, I guess it's called, right?

09:58I believe refer to it as the Tanakh.

09:59So I think that's what the whole thing

10:01is the entirety is called.

10:02But these are multiple hundreds of rabbis called the sages,

10:09talking over hundreds of years in multiple locations.

10:15So starts out in the historic line of Israel

10:18and then they move to Babylonia,

10:22where that became the center of Jewish learning in exile.

10:25And there were these academies of learning

10:28and a lot of these discussions that we encounter

10:31in the Gomara come from all these different rabbis

10:36or houses of study.

10:38Like it's not only Hillel and Shammai,

10:41being two very well-known names.

10:44If you are a Jewish person, you know Hillel and Shammai

10:46is to opposing schools of thought, but Beitil and Beitshammai,

10:50these schools, they're disciples as well.

10:53So the Mishnah and the Gomara

10:56plus additional commentary added over various years,

10:59added over time, including Rashi from the medieval period,

11:04very, very important figure in understanding a lot of this

11:08and providing context.

11:10That is the Talmud in like a little nutshell.

11:14Does the, okay, so the Talmud being that,

11:17does it take the Tanakh, the Torah as the jumping off point

11:22and then sort of go from there or is it its own whole thing?

11:28- It is interwoven.

11:31So let me say it this way.

11:33All these different sages, the rabbis, they are arguing, right?

11:37Is there agreements amongst them rarely?

11:40Which is why it's so fascinating,

11:42'cause anyone who says that Judaism was a monolith,

11:45there was one way of thinking or being Jewish

11:48until the modern denominations is just simply ridiculous.

11:52If you learn the Talmud, if that was the case,

11:55it wouldn't take so long to learn the whole thing.

11:57And that's what's brilliant about it,

11:59is I can agree with somebody and absolutely abhor

12:01of the thoughts of somebody else.

12:02And I'm not alone, they also have those sorts of feelings.

12:06But in order to prove that their interpretation

12:10or read on something was the correct, quote unquote,

12:14correct one or the accurate one

12:16or the one that we were supposed to do,

12:18they would bring proof texts from the Tanakh.

12:22So in order to prove XYZ thing, they would bring a statement,

12:27bring a pasta, bring a line from the Torah, the Tanakh

12:31and reference that.

12:32So in order to have their arguments have validity,

12:36they needed to bring in the written Torah in order

12:40to back up their assertions.

12:44And so when you go through the Mishnah

12:46and you go through the Gomara,

12:49you will see always a source text is being referenced.

12:53And either they are elucidating it,

12:55they are expanding upon this idea or clarifying it

12:59or extrapolating, and this is when it gets a little sketchy,

13:03extrapolating one idea from another

13:05because of parallel words used in one place

13:10that they find in another.

13:11And thus they find a connection between the two.

13:15I will give a little example from the current tractate.

13:20I'm studying, although now that I say that I realize

13:22I haven't explained what a tractate is.

13:24So a tractate, a masechitz, is a volume, I guess we would say,

13:29of the Talmud.

13:32And there are different ones for different subjects.

13:36Do they stay on topic?

13:38Rarely.

13:39So the first one that I learned was brachot,

13:43which is ostensibly about blessings,

13:45but it's about a lot of other things in addition to that.

13:50So the current tractate I am learning right now

13:54is tractate kiddushin,

13:57which is about betrothal in marriage.

14:00And on the very first page of that masechitz,

14:05that tractate, the very first daf, that's a page of Talmud,

14:09the discussion is how does one acquire a woman, right?

14:14And the ways to be acquired are multiple.

14:17One is a document.

14:19One is exchanging or giving her an item

14:23of a certain amount of money or value.

14:25And the third is sex,

14:27but the way they are discussing the word acquired

14:31has also to do in their mind,

14:33they're connecting it to how the field was acquired

14:38in the biblical story of getting the cave of Makpela,

14:43the burial site in which is now Hevron.

14:47So they're like, ah, you acquire a field

14:49and you acquire a woman

14:51because these two kinds of wording,

14:54this parallel wording is taking place.

14:57Does that make me feel weird?

14:58Absolutely, and I'm sure we'll get into more of that.

15:01- Why?

15:02- I know, why would I feel weird about it?

15:04It's so difficult. - What's difficult

15:05about that?

15:06- So it's normal, I am an object.

15:08But to get to your earlier question about daf yomi,

15:12let me just explain that.

15:13That is a practice.

15:14It's only been a hundred years of this practice,

15:17actually earlier this week was the anniversary of that,

15:20but it is the practice of learning

15:22the entire Babylonian Talmud.

15:24There's actually two.

15:25One is called the Jerusalem Talmud.

15:26It's the earlier one.

15:27It's not as fun in my opinion.

15:30But Babylonian one is when it really gets good.

15:33That's when you have all the demon content

15:34that I love so much.

15:35But it's the practice of learning

15:38one double sided folio page of the Babylonian Talmud

15:41every single day.

15:42It's like a worldwide book club

15:45and it's a seven and a half years cycle.

15:47Seven and a half years.

15:48- Oh, okay, so we're not talking like,

15:51you know, this is the 30 day challenge.

15:53No, this is a commitment.

15:56- And this is why when I see anyone online say,

16:00well, the Talmud says blah, blah, blah,

16:02and they make up some something

16:03or they take something very out of context

16:05or they say something that is in there,

16:06but completely without the surrounding necessary information,

16:11I say and they say, I have read the Talmud.

16:14And I'm like, really, what year are you on?

16:18- Yeah.

16:19- Because I'm only halfway through.

16:21The halfway point is actually this coming Wednesday.

16:25I know this will probably come out after that,

16:27but this coming Wednesday to me

16:29is the halfway point, this current cycle begin.

16:32Thank you.

16:32- On your halfway point.

16:34- The current cycle begin in January 5th of 2020.

16:38So all of us who have been in this cycle began then.

16:42- And that's a thing.

16:43People do it together.

16:44Everybody dives in at the same time.

16:46So if you miss it, you got to wait seven years.

16:49That's not entirely intimate. - No, no, you're not allowed to.

16:52I know, I've read about it.

16:53You're out.

16:54- People can.

16:55In fact, I am honored to say that some people

16:57have started doing Daffyomi because of my videos,

17:00and which is mind-blowing to me,

17:03but they will continue on.

17:07Like after the end of this current cycle,

17:09they will have to continue to catch up on the track dates

17:13they missed before they started going.

17:15So anyone can start at any time.

17:17There's nothing wrong with that at all.

17:19It just so happens that this idea of being all

17:22on the same page and being able to sort of be doing something

17:27that another Jew completely different than me around,

17:30across the world who speaks a different language,

17:32who has completely different life than I,

17:35but together we are meeting on this page every day

17:38for seven and a half years.

17:40And it's sort of like this fascinating collective experience.

17:43So not to take anything away from people who study Talmud

17:45and other ways, people spend years on just one track date.

17:49There's all types of ways to study Talmud.

17:52This is just the way that I am doing.

17:54- I...

17:55- Oh, go ahead, Dan.

17:56- And this crosses kind of,

17:59for lack of a better word, denominational boundaries.

18:02- Yes.

18:02- All different types of weird words and docs you have.

18:04- Yes.

18:05- Does that include like the Hasidic and other branches?

18:08It's something that everyone has kind of come together

18:11and said, let's try this out.

18:13- Well, there are some people who dislike it

18:15for, I understand the reason.

18:18It is very complex material to get through.

18:20Really, really, really hard.

18:22Sometimes, sometimes easier, sometimes less though,

18:23depending on what's being discussed

18:25and who is being talked about.

18:30Or is it a fun story?

18:32Is it really upsetting?

18:33Really depends on, is it a complex set of laws?

18:36All different types of content are within it.

18:38And I understand this reticence to devote only one day

18:42to a page because there is so much to be gotten out of,

18:46out of these pages, more perhaps than one could get

18:49in a solitary day.

18:51So I understand this sort of pushback.

18:52In fact, when this practice was first introduced,

18:55it was like, no, what?

18:56No, this is wrong, this is bad.

18:59So definitely, there are the anti, anti-Tafyomi people.

19:03But for a lot of people across different denominations,

19:06this has become an exciting thing, a unifying thing.

19:11And I say that because at the beginning,

19:13before the cycle began,

19:15when the previous cycle was coming to an end,

19:18and there's this massive party,

19:19the SIEM, after the completion,

19:22it was just like, everyone is so hyped.

19:25And I remember so many social media groups popping up

19:29or had already existed.

19:31LGBTQ, Talmud groups, Tafyomi groups,

19:35women's Talmud groups, Orthodox women's Talmud groups.

19:38Every single day, I learn the DAF,

19:40because I do not speak Aramaic.

19:42I know, I know it is a fault, I do apologize.

19:45I listen to Rabbi neat Michelle Farber,

19:47she has a podcast, she is an Orthodox woman,

19:50and she teaches this incredible podcast, Hadron.

19:53And I hear her in my ear, speaking the Aramaic,

19:57and I read along, but I can't speak it,

20:00so I value that.

20:02But it really does cross so many different boundaries

20:05of so many different types of Jews.

20:07And for example, I myself am a secular atheist Jew,

20:12and I am doing Dafyomi.

20:13- Right, you know, I just wanted to get at one thing,

20:17which is, you mentioned the podcast with a woman,

20:22sort of expounding on it.

20:28When I did a bunch of research for this interview,

20:32I found a lot of people talking about Dafyomi

20:36and most of the ones that I found

20:40had significantly more beard than you have.

20:43(laughing)

20:45I'll just put it that way, they wore a different hat.

20:48And I'm wondering if you,

20:50if I just don't think you look like the standard person

20:54who would be reacting to the Dafyomi,

20:59I wonder how has that been being a young,

21:05you know, our listeners can't see you,

21:08but you know, you're very made up,

21:10you're very put together.

21:12- Is my persona now?

21:13- Yeah, exactly.

21:14- So how about that?

21:16- The brand, tyranny of the brand.

21:18(laughing)

21:19- Exactly.

21:19- Talk about how people have reacted to that.

21:21- Yes. - Oh, that sort of thing.

21:22- Yes, indeed, yes, indeed.

21:24Well, firstly, so when I started creating these videos,

21:30and I really didn't think anybody would see them,

21:32I never expected to be the center

21:34of any type of controversy

21:36because no one was gonna watch them,

21:37except people like me and who wouldn't care

21:41that I was a woman or wouldn't care, you know,

21:44anything about how I looked or that I don't dress according

21:48to the standards of modesty that I adhered to

21:51when I was an Orthodox person,

21:52which is, you know, covered up to the neckline,

21:55elbows covered, you know, the whole thing.

21:58I am a secular person now and I dress accordingly.

22:02So when people started first taking note of these videos,

22:06the pushback, the really, really overwhelming pushback

22:11and it has taken me a really long time

22:14to sort of acclimate to this.

22:16If I am acclimated to it really, I don't know if I am,

22:19having suddenly thousands of people

22:22with very strong opinions about me.

22:27And at first, it was all negative or not all negative,

22:30but widely negative.

22:32And there were several aspects to that negativity.

22:36The first is that I am not religious and I'm an atheist.

22:41And in fact, I wrote an article on day two

22:43of doing Deaf Yell Me about why I felt it was important

22:47to do this, to learn Talmud, to learn Jewish texts,

22:52even if I wasn't believing at the time.

22:54I felt it was really, really vital and I still do.

22:57I still do.

22:58It includes so much about how to understand Jewishness,

23:02Jewish identity as a nation.

23:05And I don't mean a state, I mean a nation in diaspora,

23:09how to understand all of these things

23:12that I really deeply value about being Jewish,

23:14about being a Jewish person.

23:16So I thought it was really, really vital.

23:19So when people started to notice what I was doing,

23:22the negative responses were,

23:25she is a modest, not only in her dress,

23:29but in her speech.

23:30She swears, she speaks like a millennial

23:33because I am one.

23:35How could she do this?

23:36She's making jokes about the sages.

23:39This is ironic considering the sages make a lot of jokes

23:42themselves about each other.

23:44And to anybody who does not believe me,

23:46please see the book Talmudic Insults and Curses.

23:49Highly recommend.

23:50I believe the author is Arthur Health.

23:53Great book.

23:55Great book.

23:56Nice.

23:57And yeah, it just really gives perspective on the levity.

24:00That was also a factor they didn't like.

24:02You're making jokes, you're being comedic,

24:04you're not taking this seriously.

24:05This is for men to study in a yeshiva in a set setting

24:10where it's sort of guarded, this text is guarded.

24:14It is gate-capped very literally.

24:17And most people are pushed away from engaging with it.

24:21That has certainly changed before I started doing this.

24:24I don't wanna take credit for this.

24:25Because so many women and people who are not men

24:28have worked very hard on opening those gates

24:31and doing this work.

24:32I did not pave this way.

24:36I can only walk on this path

24:38because others have gone before me.

24:40But perhaps they didn't do it on social media in this way.

24:45With those porn elbows flying left and right.

24:48Exactly, exactly, these scandalous elbows.

24:52Certainly not with vocabulary that I happen to use

24:54in my videos.

24:55And there was this also like she doesn't believe

25:00how dare she open the Talmud and talk about it.

25:03Which is ironic considering people have less pushback

25:06about someone like me opening the Torah

25:09and reading it and studying it.

25:11Which I have theories.

25:13I have theories about why that is.

25:15- That's peculiar, I get a lot of that.

25:19When I talk about the Bible, people say,

25:22"You don't believe in it, why are you even doing it?"

25:26My gender has never come up.

25:28And has ever said, "I don't have--"

25:30- That must be nice.

25:31(laughing)

25:33- Unfortunately, yeah, that's something that has never come up.

25:37But yeah, some people seem to think

25:38that if you approach this as a secular exercise

25:43or something you have no business doing

25:45that have no right to it.

25:47But that's odd that the Talmud would be considered

25:51more sacred, more set apart than the Torah.

25:55- Well, I'll tell you my theory on that in a second.

25:57But I think the thing also the people would say to me

26:00is women have made such progress in being Talmud scholars.

26:04How dare you come and make all their progress irrelevant.

26:08You have basically, yeah, I know.

26:09Which is like, I'm not the Lorax.

26:12I don't speak for all women who learn Talmud.

26:14My reactions are my own.

26:16I never claim to teach Talmud.

26:18I am merely learning, and this is a learning process.

26:21It's a project of personal learning that has become public.

26:24But it's about my own reactions to it,

26:26not me telling people what to believe.

26:29- So you're wrong for doing it because you're a woman.

26:32And you're also wrong for doing it

26:34because you're making the other women look bad.

26:35- I'm not the right type of woman.

26:37- Wow, there's a lot of hoops that you have not jumped through.

26:41- A lot of right.

26:43And yes, the fact that I wear makeup was indeed

26:48a thing because, oh, she's not serious.

26:50Oh, she's, and I actually heard this from some people,

26:52she's too pretty to learn with.

26:55Firstly, my terrible low self-esteem

26:58for the majority of my life says,

26:59oh, what really, wow, thanks.

27:00Good to know.

27:03But I always respond to this with,

27:06in the Talmud, there is a particular sage, Rabbi Yohannan,

27:12who is notoriously the best looking human being.

27:15And he says it, the Talmud says it,

27:17everybody says it is a known fact.

27:20So I said, how dare you?

27:21How dare you disrespect Rabbi Yohannan that way?

27:24- That's right.

27:25- No, no, okay, we can be attractive,

27:27but we have to be Rabbi Yohannan.

27:29That's the only one.

27:30And actually, historically, I will just note there is a,

27:34I forget what era in which she lived,

27:36but there was this female Talmud scholar, Miriam Luria.

27:41And she was supposed to be very beautiful

27:43and she taught behind a screen

27:44so that nobody would be,

27:47and I teach behind a screen too, not teach,

27:49but I react behind a screen,

27:50but it's a phone screen, which is different.

27:53So that is the, about that piece of that.

27:57But to answer your question about why I think people

27:59get more irate with me about Talmud comedy versus Torah.

28:04People know the Torah, and if they know it as the Torah

28:09or the Bible or whatever it is, it is a known known.

28:12It is out there.

28:14People know it's in it.

28:15People have engaged with it.

28:16There has been Bible jokes since ever,

28:20since forever, literally.

28:22It seems more comfortable in a certain way

28:24because it's already out there, and you can't take it back.

28:27With Talmud, there has been such a sense of protection

28:30about it, and I understand why in some ways.

28:34Certain things are said in the Talmud

28:36that come from a place, we're written in a time

28:39when the Jews were being exiled,

28:41they were being persecuted, and they verbally,

28:44in these discussions, which no one else was supposed to see,

28:47push back, and in their minds,

28:50this is a protest against their oppressors.

28:54So there are some unflattering things said

28:56about somebody who is often believed to be that Jesus.

29:01I will say, however, that those unflattering things

29:03have also been directed at me.

29:04So it's gonna be me, it's me and Jesus, and Shabbat's be.

29:08- Yeah, so what we've learned about you so far

29:10is that you're very attractive and you're Jesus.

29:12- Correct, and I wonder,

29:16'cause we always see depictions of Jesus as gorge,

29:21and I think we know who to blame in our history for this,

29:23but I am not on his level, I don't have his abs also.

29:28And I also don't wanna talk too much about Jesus

29:31because that is not my wheelhouse, not my faith.

29:34I do have to address it when it comes up in the doth,

29:37but there are things for which Jews were persecuted historically

29:41because Christians looked at the conversations

29:45in the Talmud, found some things that they found offensive

29:49and edited the Talmud or punished people directly for it.

29:54And if you still to this day, if you go on TikTok,

29:56I did this before I first ever posted a video,

29:59I wanted to see if anyone else is doing this,

30:03so I didn't like stuff on anyone's toes.

30:05And I'm like, put the Talmud search into TikTok.

30:07It is all anti-Semitic stuff that is the same exact

30:12anti-Semitic stuff as they were saying 1,000 years plus ago.

30:16Like literally has not changed,

30:18which is also another reason why I find it very important

30:20to learn it to be able to counter these narratives.

30:22But so there's that self-defense aspect

30:26of gatekeeping the text.

30:28If nobody knows what's in it,

30:29we don't have to defend these things,

30:32which I don't have a problem with.

30:33I mean, I don't care what they said about the Romans.

30:36I really don't, like I do it up, vent.

30:40But on the other hand,

30:43the Talmud represents a shift in power.

30:46It represents a shift of power from the Kohanim,

30:50the Kohane familial, how do we say genetic, I guess,

30:55leadership in Judea or in Israel before the destruction

31:01of the temple, and then that shifts, right?

31:03As the temple is destroyed, now the sages,

31:06now the rabbis are in charge,

31:08and they are in charge of defining what Judaism will be

31:11outside of the land of Israel,

31:13or in the land of Israel under occupation,

31:16and therefore the power shifts to them.

31:19And by kicking at that, what people think I am doing

31:22is kicking at that bedrock of modern rabbinic Judaism,

31:27which I'm not actually doing,

31:31that is more of a threat to some people

31:34than doing some light comedy about the Torah.

31:38- It seems to me that one of the things

31:40that Talmud is doing is kind of mediating

31:42between the Torah and communities who are trying

31:45to live these things because the Torah is very complex.

31:49It's self-contradictory in many ways.

31:51It does not provide answers to all possible questions.

31:54And so-- - Oh no, if your ox does fall

31:57in a hole, I keep telling you, you know what to do.

32:00- Very oddly specific and never-relevant guidance.

32:04And so you have the sages coming in and contemplating

32:09all the different ways you can take that ox,

32:13the Goring ox story and kind of extrapolate

32:15all these different principles out from it.

32:17And then that becomes kind of the locus of authority.

32:20Is it that that is closer to the people

32:24in their living of that religion,

32:26that this is actually what we are, is kind of how we're

32:30engaging it more so than even the Torah itself?

32:33- I think the sages are looking both backwards and forwards.

32:36They're looking backwards to a world

32:38that already was in the process of being demolished.

32:41So they're looking back and trying to figure out

32:43how do we translate a prayer structure, for example,

32:47that at the time before them was about animal sacrifice,

32:51how do we pivot away from that and define prayer

32:55being a set of written down prayers that we recite?

32:58And three times a day, they correspond to the times

33:01when Jews of that era would do sacrifices,

33:04but we're not doing animal sacrifice anymore

33:06because the temple no longer exists.

33:09How do we pivot?

33:09How do we change that when we are clearly obligated

33:13in the Torah to do these things, but we can't.

33:16We can't do them anymore.

33:18So it's like figuring out what used to go on,

33:21how to sort of carry that through in a way that makes sense,

33:24if possible, to something that they could do,

33:28which was verbal prayer, and how to make the sort of jump

33:33between what they knew, what had been Jewishness at that time

33:39or practicing Judaism and what it had to become

33:42in order to survive.

33:45So I do wanna give a lot of credit.

33:47I know I make a lot of jokes,

33:49but to be able to survive that long,

33:52and I think the credit goes to Yohran Benzakai.

33:56There's a famous story where Jerusalem is being destroyed

33:59and he fakes his own death and gets smuggled out

34:02in a coffin to go speak to somebody who isn't the Roman Empire.

34:05I think it's the spasian, I'm not sure,

34:08but he tries to convince him,

34:11how do we, how do we, what do we do?

34:15And the spasian or whoever is in that position of authority

34:21says, well, what do you want?

34:23I can't stop Jerusalem from being destroyed.

34:24It's gonna happen, that's gonna happen.

34:26And so, Rabbi Ohran Benzakai says, okay, give me Yavna.

34:31Yavna is a city, and that's where he took the sages,

34:36took the rabbis and they reconstituted themselves there.

34:40They could continue the process of rabbinic learning

34:43and transmission of traditions that way.

34:46So in that moment, I think it was really down to him,

34:50although obviously a lot of other things happened

34:52and that story, I don't know about the accuracy

34:55historically of it, but the way it's presented is

34:59this is the moment where he saved Judaism

35:03by making it portable, by making it something

35:05that while everything in our tradition

35:07is deeply connected to the agricultural cycle

35:12of the land of Israel, some of our holidays

35:16that we celebrate here in North America

35:18do not make sense here in North America, but they do there.

35:21But it was that or annihilation, you got a pick.

35:27And so he made that choice.

35:29- And that's very similar to the crisis

35:31that Judah Heights faced in exile in Babylon,

35:34and you have different ways of trying to,

35:36like Ezekiel, for instance, makes God's presence portable

35:39by saying, what if his throne had wheels?

35:42- Which is true.

35:43- Yeah, that's, I mean, that's-

35:45- American vah, I mean, it's really cool.

35:48- Very trippy.

35:49- The deity wheelchair is invented.

35:50That's pretty cool, yeah, I like that.

35:52- But that's a lot of what's going on in the Torah

35:55is similarly responding to crisis

35:57and trying to figure out how we can keep our community

36:00together and increase that social cohesion

36:03and maintain our identity.

36:05And so in a lot of ways, the Talmud is simply doing that.

36:09And so I can tell that you have an appreciation

36:14for what they're doing, a respect for the Talmud.

36:17Well, also, having to react to and engage

36:22with a lot of rather problematic,

36:24a lot of rather sus aspects of it.

36:27For instance, the fact that women are treated

36:30as property in some ways when it comes to,

36:33and I don't know what the term in the Talmud is,

36:37but in the Hebrew Bible, it's blah-kah,

36:39is what you do to get a wife.

36:42You take a wife- - Yeah, you acquire.

36:45- Yeah, and so can you talk a little bit about

36:48the conceptualization of women within the Talmud?

36:52What kind of questions are being asked

36:54and how are women being represented?

36:56And is there agency even a question?

36:59Or is it just only the agency of the man?

37:04- When I go to do workshops with people,

37:08and I don't teach them Talmud,

37:09I teach them how to react to Talmud,

37:11one of the things I recommend is asking themselves,

37:15who is speaking in this portion of the text?

37:19And who is being spoken about?

37:21And often the people who are being spoken about,

37:24but who have very little agency,

37:26I mean, it depends on the area and the topic,

37:28but they're women.

37:31Women are often discussed in the Talmud.

37:33In fact, there's a whole order of the Mishnah,

37:35we're in it right now, Seder, Nashim, all about women.

37:40And for better or worse.

37:41And so sometimes we see huge debates

37:46over multiple pages or whole tractates

37:49that could have been easily resolved

37:51had they asked a woman.

37:53But they didn't, so, and no women were present.

37:55Well, let me rephrase that.

37:57Let me add just a little bit about that.

38:00Some women were present.

38:02I want to mention Baruria in particular.

38:05She was a sage.

38:07I think we can fairly say that.

38:09In her own right.

38:11And she famously learned 300 halakhot laws

38:15in one afternoon because she could.

38:18And other people did not have her aptitude

38:21for learning for Talmud for her knowledge.

38:26It's incredible off the charts.

38:28There are only a few women named in the Talmud.

38:32Fewer who are actually knowledgeable

38:36about Jewish law or Torah tradition

38:38and who are pointed at as being right

38:42in their interpretations.

38:44She is definitely one person who is her rulings,

38:47her judgments.

38:48I mean, not her rulings, she wasn't allowed to do that,

38:50but her judgments or suggestions, her read.

38:54Is she quoted or is she just?

38:56She is quoted.

38:57She is quoted and she is quoted.

38:59And there's one quote, I think one thing

39:02I really appreciate about her is she weaponized

39:05the what we would term now, sexism in the Talmud

39:08in her own to her own benefit.

39:12There is a story where she is walking along a road,

39:16minding her own business, right?

39:17Doing whatever she needed to get done.

39:19And Rabbi Yossi walks up to her and says,

39:23which way to load or something like that?

39:25And she turns around and clearly she didn't want to be bothered

39:28on her walk.

39:29And she says to him, and I'm paraphrasing

39:31because I don't remember the actual,

39:33how it is actually said, use fewer words

39:36when speaking to women, which is something

39:38that the sages are saying, don't talk to women.

39:41It's a bad idea, it's a bad idea, right?

39:43They're gonna lure you into stuff.

39:44No, don't do it.

39:46And she's like, speak less to women.

39:48You should have just said, which way to load?

39:50Instead of, oh, are we on the right path?

39:53Where are you going?

39:54Am I going this way?

39:55So she was like weaponizing.

39:56She's like, sir, have you not heard.

39:58I'm going to speak less to women.

40:00But then we get also people like Yalta,

40:03who famously did not appreciate being disrespected openly

40:09by a sage, Ola, who was visiting her own home.

40:13And she had requested to also have the kiddish.

40:18So the wine that is used as part of like Shabbat,

40:23part of a lot of Jewish rituals.

40:25And Ola, who was not her husband,

40:28but the guy who was visiting was like,

40:29don't give it to her, she's a woman.

40:30And she was like, okay,

40:32I won't say what I would usually say in Valswares.

40:35But she goes down and she just--

40:38- She rejected the notion.

40:39- She firmly rejected it.

40:40She went and smashed 300 barrels of wine.

40:44- Wow.

40:45- She's like, oh, you want it in my house,

40:47you're gonna do this?

40:49Let's go.

40:50I actually, this, if anyone's watching on YouTube,

40:52I don't know, but this is an image I drew of her.

40:55She is holding an axe on her shoulder.

40:58- Love it. - And ready to smash

40:59the patriarchy.

41:00- Yeah.

41:01- But, overall. - And we're in a bunch

41:03of wine, which I think is a bit of a tragedy,

41:06but sometimes you-- - I understand,

41:08but sometimes you have to make a point.

41:10You know, I do understand, I do, I do.

41:12And it was-- - If you guys had a Jesus,

41:14he could have just turned some water back into the wine,

41:16but unfortunately-- - Right, right.

41:18Now there is a story about somebody,

41:20okay, look, I won't go into that

41:22because we're talking about the woman question.

41:26So yes, we do hear from, we do have actual quotes

41:29from a few women in the Talmud

41:32who have significant-ish parts to play

41:36or things to convey stories about them

41:39that are relevant and important to the topics being discussed.

41:44And I appreciate that, I do.

41:47And then there's the rest of it,

41:48where, you know, not only do we usually hear about women

41:52as relation to a man, this is someone's wife,

41:56her daughter, and she doesn't get a name.

41:58In my videos, I give them names

42:00so that they can have one.

42:02But it's the discussion as a whole,

42:05depending on what we are talking about.

42:08Women did not have rights of owning things

42:11on their own when they were married.

42:14Everything she made, like if she had a job,

42:17that's really the own ownership of that money

42:21or whatever went to her husband.

42:23She does not hold onto that.

42:24And actually the same if she's younger

42:26and is working, her father gets that.

42:28If, you know, she is sexually assaulted,

42:31the fee that the rapist pays doesn't go to her.

42:36It's not about her and her embarrassment.

42:37That goes to her father.

42:40- She's a commodity and now the commodity's been compromised.

42:43- Exactly.

42:44And her value also goes down as a non-virgin,

42:47which is also a deeply obnoxious, you know,

42:50really difficult thing to come to terms with.

42:53The value is virginity and your price lowers.

42:58- Good thing, nobody thinks that way anymore.

43:01- Right, thank goodness.

43:02Nobody has that idea.

43:04- I know, since then.

43:06- Yeah, I think what was it?

43:071973 when women could have credit cards.

43:12- Oh, really?

43:13- Yeah, something like that.

43:14- Yeah, yeah.

43:15So we'll come a long way, haven't we?

43:17- Right, right.

43:18In some ways we have come a long way.

43:20The thing I will say is I do get very mad

43:23at a lot of things in the Talmud about women.

43:25And some of them I'm like,

43:27"Okay, this was 2000-ish years ago.

43:30"I can't change that."

43:32Sure, it's disturbing to come across

43:35and to process it, sometimes I will donate

43:37to like a women's organization or something.

43:39I'm like, "I'm learning this,

43:41"but I'm gonna change something in the present."

43:43What really gets me is times when the Talmud

43:47is discussing an issue involving women

43:49and the problem has trickled down to this day

43:54and affects us now.

43:55I will use an example.

43:57We just got out of tractate guillotine,

44:01which is about divorce, right?

44:03Actually, until the 10th century,

44:05women didn't have to agree to a divorce.

44:06They just, bye, couldn't do anything about it.

44:09At the time, marriage was the only way

44:12for economic support, status, protection.

44:17And I hate that that was the case.

44:19I hate that, but a man is the only one

44:23who can grant a divorce in Judaism.

44:26And still to this day among the Orthodox community,

44:30only a man can initiate a divorce

44:32and a man can withhold that divorce,

44:34leading the woman, the woman, the wife,

44:37even if she desperately wants to be away from him,

44:39even if he is abusive, whatever it is,

44:41she will not be free of him

44:44until he grants her that get.

44:46And women who are in that position

44:48of being chained to a dead marriage are called agunot.

44:51And there is a truly terrible crisis about that,

44:56especially, I will say, in the state of Israel,

45:00where there is no secular marriage or divorce.

45:03It is all through the rabbinate.

45:07- Yeah, I have a friend who lives in Jerusalem

45:10who literally she and her partner

45:12just very recently traveled to Cyprus

45:16to get married a day trip out and back

45:19because they didn't want,

45:21because they couldn't go, they're secular,

45:24even though they are of Jewish origin.

45:27And they couldn't, they had no way to do it otherwise.

45:31- Yeah, it doesn't actually matter what I would believe.

45:34If I went there and I wanted to get married,

45:37I would have to do it through the rabbinate.

45:39And if I wanted to get a divorce,

45:41I would have to do the same thing.

45:42And that plays into issues of custody

45:46and things like that as well.

45:47And that is not good, that is very bad.

45:50So I hope, I really hope that soon Israel

45:53will have civil divorce, civil marriage.

45:56But even here in America, so I am a divorced person.

46:01I was married for nine years to a fellow Jew

46:04and we were divorced in American law.

46:07And I also made sure, even though I am not observant,

46:11I am not a believer at this time,

46:13that he went to a bait dean,

46:16which is a Jewish court of three men,

46:19if it's an Orthodox one or three people,

46:22if it's not Orthodox.

46:24And I received my get.

46:26This is my document of freedom,

46:28which is not too dissimilar to a document freeing a slave.

46:32- Wow, so you have been manumitted?

46:36- I have indeed been freed.

46:38- No, did they drop it for you?

46:41- Yes, and you catch it.

46:42- Yes, and I did a very,

46:44so I was the only woman in the room.

46:46And I was like, okay, I'm gonna make this funny.

46:50This is the last hoop I have to jump through

46:52before I am free of this person.

46:54And so the person who was a stand,

46:57well, there was a stand-in for my husband there,

47:00'cause I didn't wanna be in the same room with him.

47:01But at one point, the get the document

47:04is actually dropped into the wife's hands, she catches it,

47:07and she like brings it into her.

47:09So she's like, "Book," and I did a very dramatic one.

47:12I did get, people did laugh, so I win.

47:15- It's so good, when you kill at your get, that is a--

47:19- I know, that's it, that's it too, that is it.

47:21- Right, right, right.

47:22- That's good stuff.

47:23- Yeah, so I did receive it.

47:25I went through the whole ritual.

47:27The thing is that you don't get to keep that.

47:29You get a receipt that says, "I have my get."

47:33You don't keep it, the bait didn't keep it.

47:36- Wow.

47:36- They keep it in the event, 'cause they don't want

47:38like anything to happen to it,

47:40anything to be changed about it, which couldn't validate

47:43what happened.

47:44They actually cut it before, it's sealed in a special way,

47:47it's cut with a knife, and then they keep it,

47:50and I have a receipt in a security box.

47:52(laughing)

47:54But, right, so this is an example of something

47:57that we see in the Talmud, that I can be mad about then,

48:02and I can be mad about now, because the through line

48:05is direct.

48:06- Yeah, I'm guessing a lot of people your age

48:10especially women, really appreciate having someone,

48:15having an avatar of them talking in this way,

48:20because I can't imagine that it's common.

48:24I can't imagine that this is a usual way of talking

48:29about the Talmud, about the doff, all of that stuff.

48:33- It isn't, it isn't, it isn't.

48:37I will say that there are a lot of other forms of media

48:42in which this is done, for example,

48:43there are great meme pages about the doff on Instagram

48:47that I love, right?

48:48So it is addressed in that way for other people

48:52who also find this comedic nugget in there,

48:55but also the intense part that we're sort of making

48:59a commentary on in a meme form.

49:02In terms of short form video,

49:04I have not found another me.

49:07If I had, I probably wouldn't have created this series

49:09because I was like, oh, no, this person has it.

49:12They already, they have this down.

49:13They don't need me, but I hadn't found a me.

49:17That's not to say that other women don't have these thoughts

49:19or have these opinions and share them in their own groups

49:23or their own way, or maybe there are those out there

49:25whose videos I haven't discovered yet.

49:26But I think there's a reason that people started taking note

49:30and writing about it and showing it on Israeli TV,

49:33showing my videos on Israeli TV without sound swearing at,

49:35which was hilarious.

49:36And why it became such a huge controversy at the beginning

49:39of when I started to do this,

49:41because it was a new ish approach.

49:43It was a fairly new approach in a medium TikTok

49:47that had not been, it hadn't been done before

49:49and it hadn't been done by somebody like me.

49:51And to your point, there is a way in which I am an avatar.

49:55I am no longer just myself, Mary Amansavan.

49:59I was just me, and then in January of 2022,

50:03I became more than just me when this happened.

50:06And I'm cognizant of that, deeply cognizant of that,

50:09because people see me and they say,

50:11I didn't think that I could learn Talmud

50:13because I am a non-religious woman

50:15or I didn't think I could learn Talmud because I am,

50:18or even I wanna say, not even just women,

50:22people who aren't men, anybody who isn't men, I'm in.

50:25Or they say, I used to be religious

50:28and then I stopped being religious

50:29because I shared my views, my opinions, my reactions,

50:33then Yeshiva and I was kicked out

50:35and told that I could not have these opinions,

50:38that there was a set paradigm with which

50:40I was to understand this text

50:42and I was not to think too far beyond it

50:44or engage with it on a deeply personal level

50:47where I could have these thoughts.

50:49- That's interesting.

50:49Sorry, can I just drill into that a little bit?

50:52It was fascinating to me.

50:53You literally just said, you know,

50:55when you're explaining Talmud to us,

50:58that there are these factions of discussion

51:03that are disagreeing with each other.

51:04There's a tradition of disagreement

51:07and yet things, as they so often do in human life,

51:11things, people are more comfortable

51:13once something is solidified.

51:16- The Talmud became calcified at a certain point,

51:21or I should say the discussions became calcified.

51:25It became, I think once the Shokhan-Arach

51:27came around and possibly before this,

51:29so the Shokhan-Arach, when people say

51:31you get your laws out of the Talmud,

51:33that is not necessarily true.

51:34You get your arguments out of the Talmud.

51:37You have questions, a lot of questions,

51:38not all of which are answered.

51:40But the Shokhan-Arach is a book,

51:44it's literally called The Set Table.

51:46It is how you should do things

51:48and it clearly articulates it.

51:50And so while there are differences

51:52in practice for short geographic locations

51:56like diaspora communities who may have lived

51:58hither and yon and don't have the same

52:00practices or customs always,

52:02those who kind of did come from this specific tradition,

52:06it's now like this is what you do.

52:09And if you wanna consult and find out the right way,

52:12quote unquote the right way,

52:14to prepare for Passover and go and do whatever XYZ thing,

52:18you don't go and look in the Talmud.

52:19You look at a later compendium of law.

52:24So even though I know you would think

52:27that looking in the Talmud, you'd be like,

52:28yeah, we are here to argue.

52:30And a lot of people do see that.

52:32A lot of people do see that

52:33and they will re-enact in a way,

52:35the arguments between these multiple viewpoints,

52:39these sages who are well known,

52:41like people that you kind of grew up hearing about,

52:44that's how important they are in Jewish tradition.

52:50That we know their names and we know how they thought

52:52and we know a little bit about their lives

52:53and how that impacted how they thought.

52:56In a lot of ways, the fear of thinking outside of the box

53:00in a way that is a little bit too dramatic

53:03or could be detrimental to modern Jewish communities

53:07in some way, like, oh no,

53:08we don't want people to think too hard

53:10because then they're gonna go off the Derek,

53:11they're gonna go, they're not gonna be religious anymore.

53:15I am an OTD and off the Derek too.

53:19And a lot of people don't like that term,

53:20but it is a commonly used one.

53:23The concern is, no, you are not, you're not,

53:26don't think too hard, don't react this way.

53:28We know the reactions that we should be having to this.

53:31And if you have a different one,

53:33why are you questioning what I am telling you?

53:36Not what the Talmud is saying, necessarily,

53:38but what modern instructors, modern teachers,

53:40modern rabbis are saying about the right way

53:45to interpret and the right way to react.

53:48And sometimes, I have had, I think, very early on,

53:53third month, maybe, that I had been making these videos.

53:56I spoke about the algunah crisis

53:59and I also spoke about sexual assault

54:02because it was a doff.

54:03It was a page addressing sexual assault,

54:05such a fun topic, such a fun topic.

54:07And I remember while I got a lot of pushback from men

54:11who were like, you have to understand

54:12this is actually better than it was

54:13everywhere else at the time.

54:14And I'm like, no.

54:19So many people wrote to me privately and said,

54:23I, well, either people who had experienced a sexual assault

54:26and were giving me their stories to hold.

54:29So I, you know, have this responsibility

54:33and how to hold these stories for people.

54:35And I'm honored they trusted me with those.

54:37Other people who were men wrote and said,

54:39I have learned this seven times.

54:41I have learned this,

54:42however many times I have learned this page of Talmud.

54:44And I never thought about that

54:46because I never learned it with a woman.

54:47- Yeah.

54:49- So it's,

54:50if you have the same type of person learning with you,

54:54you are going to have the same types of reactions,

54:57same types of thoughts.

54:58And you're not gonna expand beyond that.

55:00But I think what the Talmud says to me

55:02is that the more voices in Talmud, the better.

55:05And I just wish that more people now agreed with that.

55:09- Well, and I think TikTok is a great democratizer

55:12in a little ways because it enables people

55:14to get in front of an audience.

55:15And it gives you a seat at the table.

55:17And I think that's probably what's threatening a lot of people

55:20is they're so used to people who experience the world

55:24in the same way as them.

55:25And they're comfortable in their power structures

55:28and in that patriarchy and having a seat at the table

55:31threatens those power structures.

55:33And that is threatening their worldview

55:35and threatening their experience of the world around them.

55:37And for a lot of people, that's unacceptable.

55:40Which I think is one of the reasons that it's

55:45something that is not, it's a good way to say this.

55:50You haven't come across many other people

55:51doing what you're doing from your set of experiences

55:55and perspectives because it takes some bravery to do that

56:00because you're going to get pushback from those folks

56:03who don't know any better than to just reflexively defend

56:08the patriarchy because that's the foundation

56:10of their worldview.

56:12- Yeah, I do wanna say before anyone gets a wrong idea

56:17that people view my videos from across the Jewish spectrum.

56:22I have people who are not religious at all

56:24and I have people who are Orthodox.

56:26And I appreciate that.

56:28And I appreciate when somebody who is has existed

56:32in that structure says to me, I actually really love this.

56:36I love what you're doing.

56:36I can't wait to get to this page and this topic.

56:40And I'm just really excited to see what you do with it.

56:42So I just wanted to express my gratitude

56:45for all the people who may not initially perhaps

56:48have felt comfortable with what I'm doing,

56:50but have come to or always did perhaps find value in it

56:55and see what I'm trying to do comes from a place

56:57of deep love and appreciation.

57:00That doesn't mean I don't have difficulties with it,

57:02but it comes from not a place of hate

57:04or wanting to dismantle it.

57:06It comes from a place of deep love.

57:09And I think people who are sincerely engaging

57:11with your content can sense that.

57:13And I've had similar experiences

57:16where I have people from all across the spectrum

57:18of belief and non-belief who appreciate the content

57:20that I produce and I'm also very, very humbled

57:23and grateful that I'm getting that feedback

57:27because it validates what I'm doing.

57:29I'm sure it validates for you what you're doing.

57:32So congratulations, I think that's a sign

57:36that you're in a sweet spot that you're doing something right.

57:39And I hope that continues and increases

57:44as the reach of your social media content expands.

57:49And I was going to ask TikTok,

57:52is that where you create most of your content

57:54or that's the environment for which you create most of this?

57:57- TikTok is the environment for which I create.

58:00However, I have noticed since the pandemic

58:03has, I mean, it's still here, but things have shifted.

58:06There's actually been a change also in TikTok

58:09where it has become a lot more strict in what I can.

58:12I cannot say, which is why I have to use euphemisms

58:14all the time, but it's become more strict.

58:17And my views there are going down often,

58:19but my views on like Instagram and YouTube are going up.

58:22So like the strange shift is happening, which is a bit odd.

58:27I think what I initially love about TikTok,

58:30and I still love about TikTok,

58:31even though it has experienced some changes since 2020

58:34at its height when everyone created a TikTok page.

58:37And I was like, this is my life now.

58:40I think that some of the changes or some of the things

58:42that I really appreciate and appreciate it about it still

58:46is the sense of community that I don't necessarily find

58:49on Instagram or YouTube.

58:51There's viewers, there's, you know,

58:53in the comments we're going back and forth,

58:54but TikTok is a special kind of environment.

58:57It is a special kind of environment.

58:59And I really value the community that has been built there.

59:03Without that, this wouldn't have happened on Instagram.

59:05This wouldn't have happened on YouTube

59:06without TikTok kicking it off first.

59:09I think that it has a very unique way of approaching

59:14interacting with content and the way people can respond.

59:19And you can respond with videos

59:20in this kind of ongoing conversation,

59:23which is not too unlike Tom and in a way.

59:25But I think that whatever fluctuations happen

59:29on social media between the platforms

59:31and, you know, depending on how earlier this year,

59:33there was that fear about TikTok going away.

59:36Ugh, there's the debacle with Twitter,

59:38where now all we have all these,

59:40this diaspora of Jay Twitter

59:41who were wandering around trying to find each other

59:44on like Mastodon and Blue Sky and everywhere.

59:48There's so many shifts in social media,

59:49but the general trend is that more and more people

59:52across the board are watching my stuff.

59:55And for that, I am deeply, deeply grateful.

59:57And, you know, I really do have to have to give it up for TikTok

60:01because without that, this would not have happened.

60:04- Well, so speaking of all of these places,

60:07how do people find you, how do they track you down?

60:10- You can find, well, don't try to track me down

60:12because I'm literally, I truly do believe that I will be--

60:15- Track your videos down.

60:17- I truly believe that I will be assassinated

60:19by somebody who writes what I do.

60:21You can find me on TikTok, on Instagram, on YouTube,

60:25on Mastodon, on Blue Sky and on threads

60:29at Miriam Anzovan, M-I-R-I-A-M-A-N-Z-O-V-I-N.

60:34And I post videos, you know, usually everywhere,

60:39all those places, so if you're not on TikTok

60:41and you're a YouTube person, you will see the same content

60:44that I post on my TikTok and my Instagram.

60:47- And it's not just Dafreactions,

60:49you also react to other genres

60:52of Tamuduk and other literature.

60:53- Well, that, you know what, we're gonna have to, that is a talk,

60:56a discussion for a different episode of this show.

60:58So maybe we'll have you back to talk about other things

61:01and so that I can learn other--

61:02- I would be delighted, I would be delighted.

61:05- Well, Miriam Anzovan, thank you so much for joining us.

61:08We really appreciate it.

61:10For those of you who are patrons of our show,

61:13if you stick around, we'll do some, Miriam is agreed

61:16to foolishly, probably, agreed.

61:18- Probably.

61:20- To stick around and chat with us a little bit more,

61:23we'll get down and dirty and personal so you might show her elbows.

61:27You never know what's gonna happen.

61:28And for those of you who aren't patrons but would like to be,

61:34you can always go to patreon.com/dataoverdogma to become one.

61:39And what's the other thing?

61:41Oh, if you want to contact us, you can write to us contact,

61:44it's contact@dataoverdogmapod.com.

61:49Thanks so much for joining us.

61:50We'll talk to you again next week.

61:52- Bye, everybody.

61:53(upbeat music)