I suddenly knew what I wanted to do. Along with hundreds of thousands of people around the world, I opened to the very first page, and began.

  Something magical happened when I switched over from looking online at news reports about antisemitic attacks to joining online Daf Yomi discussion groups and looking up Daf Yomi resources. The algorithms all caught on instantly, and suddenly I saw almost nothing online that wasn’t related to discussions of the Talmud’s opening pages—which contain a rambling, digressive, and almost bottomless conversation about when, where, and how to recite the Sh’ma, Judaism’s central statement of faith in the singularity of God.

  I had studied parts of the Talmud before, and in the past I’d found its structure extraordinarily annoying. The Talmud isn’t written like a normal book, or even like a normal “sacred” text. It’s not a story, or a manual of religious practice, or a compilation of wisdom, or a book of philosophy, or a commentary on the Bible, or even a compendium of laws. Instead, it’s more like a ridiculously long social media thread, complete with pedantic back-and-forths, hashtagged references, nonstop links and memes, and limitless subthreads, often with almost no discernible arc or goal. Or to use a more timeless metaphor, it’s like walking into a room full of people engaged in a heated conversation—people who are constantly interrupting one another and shunting the conversation onto different tracks, and who don’t care at all if you know what they’re talking about, and who therefore never bother to explain why any of this matters. For a novelist like me who spent twenty years creating artistically designed stories, engineered to draw readers in and take them to a destination, this rambling discussion passing itself off as a book (recorded, incidentally, in a nearly indecipherable shorthand style) always struck me as exasperating in the extreme. But after the dark weeks I had just sleepwalked through and all the inexpressible anxiety that had accompanied them, I walked into this irritating conversation and experienced a strange and unexpected feeling: an undeniable sense of welcome and relief. It was like coming out of a cold, dark night into a warm and lighted room. Six centuries of sages seemed to move over, still talking, and make space for me at the study-hall table strewn with open books. I sat down, exhausted, and listened.

  From when, the Talmud’s first page begins, does one recite the evening Sh’ma? From when the priests in the Temple consumed the daily sacrifices. From when the remains of those sacrifices finished burning on the altar. From dusk, which is different from sunset. Up until midnight. Actually, up until dawn. How do you know when it’s dawn? When you can distinguish between a white and a blue thread, the threads sewn into the corner of a garment to remind one of God’s commandments—but they’ll get back to that later. Really it’s up to the end of the first night watch. Or the second watch. How long is a “watch,” and how many are there in the night? A biblical verse suggests there are four. Another verse suggests there are three. During the first night watch, donkeys bray; during the second night watch, dogs bark; during the third, babies wake to nurse and wives whisper with their husbands. Maybe this is beautiful imagery, or maybe it corresponds to constellations moving across the night sky. This whole conversation is about how to tell time without clocks—or, to put it another way, how to find one’s place in the world while the world is in motion, how to hold fast to that constant point of stillness as all else changes. It’s a skill, a science, an art. King David woke at midnight to praise God, according to the Psalms. How did he wake up? He had an Aeolian harp hanging above his bed, and the midnight wind would wake him. Would the wind always come at midnight? Or was this wind more like a writer’s inspiration, moving the poet-king to rise in the dark and write his psalms of praise?

  It had been a number of years since I had regularly recited the evening Sh’ma. But after spending half an hour each day following complex arguments on this point, I found myself returning to it, on my own and with my family, chanting the words as we drifted to sleep. There was a comfort here, a refuge as we recited the words. We were on a watch, awake in the dark. But someone was also watching us.

  There was also something comforting in the endlessness of the rabbis’ conversations. The obsessive-compulsive thought patterns of these people felt familiar to me, a personality tic that I knew well from myself and from many of my relatives and friends—one that had always frustrated me, both in myself and in others. I’d perceived it as a fault to be corrected. But now I saw clearly what it was expressing: grief, fear, and resilience.

  Until the year 70 CE, Judaism had been centered at the ancient Temple in Jerusalem, where worship was mediated through priests offering sacrifices. This was a visceral, physical process involving livestock and grain and wine and incense and fire and smoke. There was nothing metaphorical or intellectual about it. Even the location itself was mandated by God. After the Romans destroyed this temple and exiled the people, there was no particular reason for this religion, or even simply this people, to survive in any form. But on the eve of this temple’s destruction, one sage, Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai, had himself smuggled out of the besieged city of Jerusalem in a coffin, after which he convinced the Roman general Vespasian to allow him to open an academy for Torah scholars in a small town far from Jerusalem. Both Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai and Judaism faked their own deaths in order to survive this cataclysm. The small cadre of scholars in that small town reinvented this religion by turning it into a virtual-reality system, replacing temple rituals with equally ritualized blessings and prayers, study of Torah, and elaborately regulated interpersonal ethics. The sages frantically arguing about when and how to recite which prayers are survivors and descendants of survivors, remnants of a destroyed world. They are anxious about remembering every last detail of that lost connection to God, like mourners obsessing over the tiniest memories of a beloved they have lost. One might expect that this memory would eventually fade, that people would “move on.” Instead the opposite happens. Once the process of memory becomes important, the details do not fade but rather accrue—because the memory itself becomes a living thing, enriched by every subsequent generation that brings new meaning to it.

  As I followed the discussions that had previously annoyed me, I realized something stunning: Many of the sages arguing with one another on each page didn’t live in the same generation, or even in the same century. Nor were they, for the most part, quoting written texts of what those in the previous generation or century had said. Instead, they relied on designated people who served as mental court reporters, tasked with sitting in study halls where these discussions took place and mentally recording entire conversations between sages. These records were then passed down almost entirely orally, written down only generations later.

  This would simply be a fascinating historical fact, except that as I turned the Talmud’s pages, I discovered that it wasn’t—because these people’s elaborate communal memory overlapped with mine. As I followed along while the rabbis debated how prayers should be said, I frequently bumped up against actual prayers and practices—blessings of gratitude for different foods, words to recite before a journey, how and when to bow and rise—that I myself had learned when I was young, that I too knew by heart. Of course, I only knew these things because of these people on this page, and all the people after them, who had made the conscious decision to pass these things down to me. None of these sages needed to say what was obvious from the mere existence of this process. Destruction and humiliation didn’t matter. Only memory and integrity did. Was the hour I was living through right now different from the hour they were living through then? Did it matter? From what hour does one recite the evening Sh’ma?

  God prays, the sages say. There is a lot on God’s mind. According to the Psalms, God is furious every day. How long does God remain angry? the sages ask. For one fifty-eight thousand eight hundred and eighty-eighth of an hour. In God’s prayer, God says: May it be my will that my compassion will overcome my anger. I wondered: Was I furious every day too? (I was, then.) Could I try to be furious only for one fifty-eight thousand eight hundred and eighty-eighth of an hour? Could my compassion overcome my anger? Was my life a mere fifty-eight thousand eight hundred and eighty-eighth of an hour? From what hour does one recite the evening Sh’ma?

  I was surprised by how little I was bothered by the things I didn’t agree with. Perhaps you will be shocked to hear, for instance, that a fifth-century text says unenlightened things about women. I could hardly have cared less. I was more surprised by how enchanted I was by what almost no one would agree with, or at least no mature adult.

  The Torah wasn’t given to the ministering angels, one sage points out, but to people with bodies. Bodies that fart. There is an entirely unreasonable amount of material about bathrooms, farting, peeing, and pooping, which is off-putting if you are not a twelve-year-old boy. Luckily I live with a twelve-year-old boy, along with a ten-year-old boy and a seven-year-old boy—and boy, were they entertained. This opened my eyes to how much of the text was perhaps intentionally funny. One extended discussion, for instance, dealt with whether one could recite the Sh’ma while in the presence of a pile of poop. Walk at least four steps away from it, one sage advised. But what if you still smell it? another asked. Well, another chimed in, perhaps it depended whether the poop was wet or dry. But how can you determine how dry the poop is? somebody asked—and then promptly supplied a story of how one revered teacher once sent his devoted pupil to check the specific crustiness of a piece of poop. My sons’ amusement at this made me realize what should have been obvious: The discussion might have been serious (especially before indoor plumbing), but there might well be a point where it crossed over to deadpan humor. Or bedpan humor. Either way, then as now, the world really is full of shit. We can pretend the shit is not there, or we can think through how to live with it without making ourselves sick.

  Similar trolling powers arose in a discussion of invisible “demons” that, various sages claimed, surrounded each person by the thousands, causing all kinds of pains and illnesses. (Two major twentieth-century sages suggested a new translation for the ambiguous word “demons”: germs.) Was there a way to see these “demons”? the sages wondered. Yes, one rabbi announced. One simply had to take the placenta of a firstborn black cat, who was herself the firstborn daughter of another firstborn black cat, grind up and burn that cat placenta, and then rub it into one’s eyes—“and then one will see them.” Another sage followed these instructions and saw the demons, which probably looked like ground-up burnt cat placenta. I could not stop laughing. On the other hand, demons really are everywhere. They are invisible, and there are thousands of them, on every screen in every pocket, spreading lies and causing pain. God is furious every day. Who isn’t?

  The sages mourn. One rabbi, father of ten dead sons, carries around a bone of his tenth dead son and shows it to every mourner he meets, sharing his pain and also his compassion. Another, asked to serenade a bride and groom, stands and sings, You are going to die. Others smash glasses at weddings, a practice continued at my own. Ours is a broken world. Rebuilding is hard, daily, constant, endless, the marriage that follows the wedding, which is not a happy ending but an imperfect beginning. From when can we recite the evening Sh’ma?

  The sages obsess over how to disagree without humiliating others. One announces that it is preferable to enter a fiery furnace than to embarrass another person in public. When the president of the rabbinic high court publicly insults a sage who disagrees with him, the court impeaches him and throws him out of office. Seeing the respect given to the sage he insulted, the former president visits him at home, where he discovers the sage is a humble blacksmith. He begs forgiveness, repeating his apologies even when the man at first ignores him. When the man accepts his apology, the court restores him to his position, though on the condition that he share the post with the sage appointed in his stead—a compromise reached with the help of the blacksmith sage, on behalf of his former enemy. I studied these passages as the news blared with a presidential impeachment trial, our public life a sickening spectacle of corruption and insult with no interest in reconciliation or even integrity. There are ways to rebuild a broken world, and they require humility and empathy, a constant awareness that no one is better than anyone else. That constant awareness requires practice, vigilance, being up at all the watches.

  The sages know the world is broken. They hold the broken pieces tight. An old scholar who has forgotten the Torah he studied is compared to the broken pieces of the Ten Commandments, the stone tablets that Moses smashed in frustration when the people turned to idol worship. These broken tablets were put into the Ark of the Covenant along with the new tablets that replaced them, the shattered pieces also part of the contract with God. The old scholar who has forgotten what he knew is still honored, carried by the people on their journey. Sometimes I felt like that old scholar, my memory of what I once valued fading, diminished, broken. I turned the page, and these long-dead scholars carried me along.

  The comforting thing about Talmud study, and Daf Yomi in particular, is that you are never alone with it. Online, instead of people yelling at one another about why they were right, Daf Yomi learners gather to ask one another what this sentence means, whether their interpretation works, what the deeper meaning is. I am stunned by these strangers, by their sincerity and candor—qualities one rarely encounters today, online or off. To my amazement, many are non-Jews in the process of converting to Judaism, voluntarily joining this journey even in the darkness.

  To my even greater amazement, one of my fellow Daf Yomi learners is my mother—the world’s least pedantic person, who signed on and has shown no signs of quitting. A grandmother of fourteen, she also now recites the Sh’ma, because, as she says, “I’m up at all the watches.” A mere mother of four, I’m up for many of them too. When we finish, we will be seven years older in our respective generations, and also, God willing, seven years wiser—even if we forget what we have learned, even if we are broken, even if our forgotten wisdom rattles around inside our minds like shards of broken tablets.

  I still follow today’s old, old news. But now I also turn away from it, toward the old, the ancient. I am forever haunted, as all living people always are, our minds the dwelling-places for the fears and hopes of those who came before us. I turn the page and return, carried by fellow readers living and dead, all turning the pages with me.

  Acknowledgments

  MORE THAN MOST BOOKS, THIS ONE OWES ITS LIFE TO generous editors who urged me to follow paths I might never have traveled on my own. As always, I am grateful to my agent, Gary Morris, who assured me that this project was worth pursuing, and to my Norton editor, Alane Salierno Mason, whose generosity and insight never fail to impress me.

  But this time I also have many more editors to thank—those who urged me to explore topics I never considered, and also those who trusted me to follow my own questionable instincts. For their faith in the stories in this book which they were the first to publish, and also for their own brilliant ideas and suggestions, I am grateful to Alana Newhouse, David Samuels, and Matthew Fishbane of Tablet, Abe Socher of Jewish Review of Books, Jennie Rothenberg Gritz of Smithsonian, Rachel Dry of the New York Times, Marla Braverman of Azure, Stuart Halpern in his role as editor of the anthology Esther in America (Maggid Books, 2021), and Yoni Applebaum of the Atlantic. I am likewise indebted to the many thoughtful people who gave generously of their time to share with me their own brave and innovative approaches to understanding the Jewish past, as well as their insightful reflections on their own experiences—including Dan Ben-Canaan, Pierre Sauvage, Ala Zuskin Perelman, Jason Guberman-Pfeffer, Fran Malino, Irene Clurman, Bonnie Galat, Jean Ispa, Alex Nahumson, Jim Fry, Eddie Ashkenazie, and Chrystie Sherman, along with many others whose words did not reach these pages. And I am also grateful to those who lent me their expertise without knowing it, including the authors listed in the bibliography.

  This book bears the imprint of my parents, Susan and Matthew Horn, and especially my mother, who raised me to be curious about the Jewish past and conscious of how we make use of it in the present. It also bears the influence of my husband, Brendan Schulman, who has tolerated hearing me talk about dead Jews for over twenty years, and who has always urged me to be braver than I otherwise would be.

  This book is dedicated to our children, Maya, Ari, Eli, and Ronen. It is my fervent hope that they will never feel the need to read it.

  Works Consulted

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  Arendt, Hannah. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. New York: Viking, 1963.

  Arendt, Hannah, and Mary McCarthy. Between Friends: The Correspondence of Hannah Arendt and Mary McCarthy, 1949–1975. Edited by Carol Brightman. New York: Harvest Books, 1996.

  “As Jewish Enclaves Spring Up Around NYC, So Does Intolerance.” Associated Press, January 2, 2020.

  Ault, Alicia. “Did Ellis Island Officials Really Change the Names of Immigrants?” Smithsonian, December 2016.

  Bale, Rachael, and Jani Hall. “What You Need to Know About Tiger Farms.” National Geographic, February 2017.

  Bar-Itzhak, Haya. Jewish Poland—Legends of Origin: Ethnopoetics and Legendary Chronicles. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2001.

  Ben-Canaan, Dan. “The Jewish Experience in China and Harbin: The Chinese Perception of the Other.” Lecture delivered at the Hong Kong Jewish Historical Society (text provided to the author). May 29, 2016.

  ______. Jewish Footprints in Harbin. Harbin: China Education Press, 2018.

  ______. The Kaspe File: A Case Study of Harbin as an Intersection of Cultural and Ethnic Communities in Conflict, 1932–1945. Harbin: Heilongjiang University People’s Publishing House, 2008.

  Bialik, Chaim Nachman. Shirot Bialik: A New and Annotated Translation of Chaim Nachman Bialik’s Epic Poems. Edited and translated by Steven L. Jacobs. Columbus, Ohio: Alpha Publishing Company, 1987.