Bava Kama 108 and 109 – Like A Baby Reborn

Today’s Talmud pages, Bava Kama 108 and 109 ask what should happen if a robber needs to repay a debt to someone who has converted to Judaism after they have died, as while most debts can be paid to an heir, a convert (who has not married and had children of their own) has no heir. The Talmud answers this question by saying that the debt should be paid to a priest. Rabbi Dovid Bashevkin introduces the Talmudic principle that a person who chooses to become a Jew, is like a baby reborn, and how this larger principle that flows throughout the Talmud may have come from this page of Talmud, and that the choice to convert is the joining of a new family and a full transformation of your being. How can this principle help explain what happens when we bond with our chosen family? Listen and find out. Like the show? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Send us a note at [email protected]. Follow us on Twitter at @takeonedafyomi and join the conversation in the Take One Facebook group. We think that you may also enjoy Liel's new book How the Talmud Can Change Your Life: Surprisingly Modern Advice from a Very Old Book, available directly from the publisher, or wherever you purchase books. Take One is a Tablet Studios production. The show is hosted by Liel Leibovitz, and is produced and edited by Darone Ruskay, Quinn Waller and Elie Bleier. Our team also includes Satephanie Butnick, Josh Kross, Robert Scaramuccia, and Tanya Singer.  Listen to the Testimonies Archive, a partnership between Tablet Studios and the USC Shoah Foundation, for eyewitness audio accounts from Israel in the wake of the Oct 7 Hamas attacks. Check out all of Tablet’s podcasts at tabletmag.com/podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices