The seven-and-a-half-year cycle of Talmud study known as daf yomi (“daily page”), which concluded its thirteenth iteration last week, has grown greatly in popularity in Orthodox, and especially ultra-Orthodox, circles since it was initiated by a Polish rabbi in the 1920s. But not all who commit themselves to the regimen of studying one folio page of the Talmud every day are Orthodox. Benjamin David, the rabbi of a Reform congregation in New Jersey, reflects on successfully completing the daf yomi:

“The only encouraging thing” about the deadly explosion in Beirut, wrote the former Swedish prime minister Carl Bildt on Twitter, “is that even Israel has been quick in offering humanitarian aid.” Had Bildt been better informed, he might have known that there is nothing new or unusual about the Jewish state offering humanitarian assistance to its Arab neighbors—or to more far-flung nations. Yet his bizarre comment was less hostile than the reactions of those who rushed to dismiss the offer as a meaningless public-relations stunt. Lahav Harkov writes: