Tough Love
This is the first installment of a regular column that will follow the Daf Yomi calendar and mine the Babylonian Talmud for new and unexpected insights.
The Talmud, which we begin anew this week after having just completed the seven-and-a-half year cycle of reading it one page at a time, opens with a blast. In its very first pages, it raises the same question anyone comforting a loved one battling with cancer, say, is asking themselves urgently: Why do bad things happen to great people?