Study Talmud with Rabbi Zajac

Chabad.org: Avraham Meyer Zajac

300 episodes listed below

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Fast daf learning, close to the page.

The gist

Study Talmud with Rabbi Zajac is a fast, source-centered daf class for listeners who want the page itself in motion. The teaching moves through Chullin, Sotah, Menachot, Rashi, Mishnah, and practical halachic distinctions with little padding.

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About Study Talmud with Rabbi Zajac

Study Talmud with Rabbi Zajac is a daily Gemara class shaped by momentum, textual loyalty, and repeated clarification. It does not flatten the daf into a neat takeaway. Instead, it walks through the page as an argument being built in real time. The recent Chullin classes move through Ben Pekua, shechita, damai, tithing, food mixtures, and the legal meaning of an animal emerging from the womb. The teaching often begins with a technical statement, then immediately asks what would have been assumed without it. That question becomes the engine of the class. Rashi, Mishnah, b'reisah, and parallel passages are used to keep narrowing the point. Sotah episodes widen the frame into biblical narrative and Temple procedure. The class follows the story of the spies, Kalev's strategy, the crossing of the Yarden, the Aron carrying its carriers, Yosef's oath, and the written passages used in the Sotah ritual. Menachot receives the same close treatment through measurements, amos, tefachim, the Shulchan, and the logic of medium and larger measures. The pace is quick. The method is patient in a different way: terms are translated, restated, and then returned to in their original vocabulary so the listener can stay inside the sugya rather than outside it. It is not a polished lecture with broad thematic packaging. It sounds like sustained learning, including corrections, pivots, and unfinished threads carried into the next episode. The show is best for listeners who already want the give-and-take of Talmud study, or who are willing to follow dense reasoning without every background detail being slowed down. Its strength is the way it keeps law, narrative, language, and moral application connected. A discussion of a heated shechita knife can turn into a distinction between damage and repair. A story about a tzadik's donkey can become a lesson in how conduct radiates outward. The class remains focused on the page, but the page is allowed to press into practice, character, and belief.

Made for: For Daf Yomi learners and serious students of Gemara who want a brisk English shiur that keeps Hebrew-Aramaic terms active. It fits listeners comfortable with dense reasoning, halachic categories, and multi-step textual argument.

What sets it apart: The show preserves the feel of live Gemara learning: objections, restatements, Rashi checks, and practical distinctions arrive as the sugya develops. It teaches quickly without stripping away the original texture of the daf.

In their own words

Learn a daily class on a Daf of Gemara, the perfect Daf Yomi class; clear and engaging shiurim from Rabbi Avraham Meyer Zajac. Or browse the series for classes on any Masechta and tractate of your choice.

As heard by us

Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026

Rabbi Avraham Meyer Zajac makes dense Talmudic argument legible without stripping away its traditional vocabulary, legal precision, or ethical reach.

Rabbi Avraham Meyer Zajac teaches the Talmud as an argument in motion. Working line by line through Chullin and Sotah, he restates a passage, brings in Rashi, tests an interpretation against another source, and follows the objection until the legal distinction becomes clear.

Read our full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

A donkey refuses untithed barley, and Rabbi Avraham Meyer Zajac makes sure you understand why.

Press play if you want

patient, line-by-line reasoning through why each objection changes the ruling
transliterated terminology kept in play, with explanations arriving as the argument needs them

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Daf Yomi Gemara studyChullin and shechitaBen Pekua and animal statusdamai and tithing questionsSotah ritual passagesYarden crossing narrativesTemple measurements in MenachotRashi and rabbinic disputes

Talks about

Religion & Spirituality Judaism

Best episodes of Study Talmud with Rabbi Zajac

Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.

Talmud: Chullin 68Jul 7, 2026

A close sugya on when a fetus already counts as slaughtered.

This episode stays with ben pekua, the fetus inside a slaughtered mother animal, and asks when that fetus is already treated as having received shechita.

Talmud: Sotah 36May 8, 2026

A brisk, question-led lesson on Yarden miracles, tribal order, and Yosef's oaths.

This single-episode review follows a lesson shaped by distance, dread, and tribal order. It opens with the miracles around the Jewish people's crossing of the Yarden under Yehoshua: the river splits, Mount Gerizim and Mount Eval are reached that same day, and the local members…

Talmud: Chullin 8May 8, 2026

A careful walk from Rav Pinchas ben Yoir to the halachic edge of a white-hot knife.

This episode begins with Rav Pinchas ben Yoir's emunah in hashgacha pratis and then moves into the mechanics of shechita, including the case of a white-hot knife.

Talmud: Chullin 7May 7, 2026

A brisk daf on tithes, animals, and the discipline that holds them together.

Chullin 7 tracks Rabbi Yeshua ben Zeruz's testimony about Rav Meir eating a leaf from Beis Sha'on and presses on to what that says about Eretz Yisrael.

Talmud: Sotah 35May 7, 2026

A source-driven sugya walk that keeps pressing the wording for meaning.

The episode moves from the spies to the Jordan crossing and then to the Ark, using the Gemara's wording to probe what the phrases can mean beyond the surface.

Talmud: Chullin 6May 6, 2026

A brisk sugya from Kutim wine to demay in mixtures.

Chullin 6 moves cleanly from the ruling on the Kutim into the story that explains it, beginning with Rabbi Meir sending Rav Shimon ben Elazar for wine and an elder identified as Eliyahu HaNavi warning him with Mishlei.

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Find your next episode

About Study Talmud with Rabbi Zajac

In their own words

As heard by us

Why you'd press play

Talks about

Best episodes of Study Talmud with Rabbi Zajac

Podcasts like Study Talmud with Rabbi Zajac

Episodes

Talmud: Bechorot 16

Talmud: Bechorot 15

Talmud: Bechorot 14

Talmud: Bechorot 13

Talmud: Bechorot 12

Talmud: Bechorot 11

Talmud: Bechorot 10

Talmud: Bechorot 9

Talmud: Bechorot 8

Talmud: Bechorot 7

Talmud: Bechorot 6

Talmud: Bechorot 5

Talmud: Bechorot 4

Talmud: Bechorot 3

Talmud: Bechorot 2

Talmud: Chullin 142

Talmud: Chullin 141

Talmud: Chullin 140

Talmud: Chullin 139

Talmud: Chullin 138

Talmud: Chullin 137

Talmud: Chullin 136

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Talmud: Chullin 132

Talmud: Chullin 131

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