About a hundred years ago, Daf Yomi was invented. "The world's oldest book club," my rabbi called it, before adding sardonically "except the [torah portion of the week]. I'm not totally sure why we need two." The goal is reading a page of talmud a day. At that breakneck pace, it only takes 7.5 years to complete. I tried it picking up in the middle of last cycle (13) and lasted about a month of dense discussion about where birds would be sacrificed in the temple before giving up. Ilana Kurshan was on the leading edge: this is her autobiography about the 7.5 years of her life doing the 12th daf yomi cycle from ~2005-2013. I wanted to read it because I committed to cycle 14, which began this January. Unlike cycle 13 (and very unlike cycle 12), apparently the idea of progressive daf yomi has ripened. There are facebook groups and slack channels filled with women and heterodox Jews of all strips.

But Ilana Kurshan did it before us. Back when it was shockingly unusual for a non-Orthodox Jew or a woman to do it. Back when there was no framework for how to do it outside of a bet mikdash. So Kurshan shows us how to take the talmud, learn from the nearly impenetrable mutterings about fruit growth and apply it to modern life. The talmud bridges her from her divorce to her second marriage, and the births of her children. She tells us about her studying on planes, in labor, in Jerusalem, in New York, in the times where she had no idea where her life was going. It's a deeply vulnerable and relatable memoir.

When people ask me about the Jewish calendar, I point out that yes, it's a lunar calendar but also inextricably linked to the solar seasons. Unlike Islam, we always celebrate holidays at the same time of year, born out of the fundamental agricultural underpinings of the religion. We always celebrate Passover in Spring, and the High Holidays in fall, and the holidays resonate with seasonal themes. At 7.5 years the daf yomi cycle is unmoored in time (honestly, I think the tannaim & amoraim would be horrified). It was unsettling to me when she read a tractate strolling through the Jerusalem shuk in summer that I'll read in Philadelphia winters. I struggled with this a lot when I started daf yomi - who knows what the context of my life will be when I read any particular tractate? Kurshan set the example of how to choose to set each page within the firmament of her life. ( )

The author chronicles her experience studying Talmud on a daily basis. I admire her observance, but she takes the Talmud with her everywhere. She evens listens to it on tape while running. Two things bothered me though, one was her belief that listening to the Talmud would protect her from a pack of dogs that were chasing her, and what seemed like obsessive streak in her behavior. I have seen Orthodox Jews state that praying correctly will cure a terminal cancer patient or some such situation. I don't like prayer given that ultimate power when it is a serious situation. Life is not a monopoly game, and you don't get a free pass. Also later in the book, the author confesses that she is anorexic, and I thought oh here we go... So she has an obsessive personality and maybe this was religious observance turned obsessive. ( )

Uhh...

I don't quite know how to describe If All the Seas Were Ink. The back page purports that this book is a memoir about Kurshan moving to Jerusalem as a newlywed, her sudden divorce, and how she put her life back together and remarried while engaging in Daf Yomi, a Jewish practice of learning a page of Talmud (the Big Book of Jewish Law Discussions, Ad Nauseam) a day. The Talmud is a BIG book, so Daf Yomi takes about seven and a half years from start to finish--and a page a day is a truly breakneck pace.

But that's not what this book is about, not really. Rather, If All the Seas Were Ink is a book-long list of Kurshan's many, many accomplishments.

Not to diminish Kurshan's achievements: Daf Yomi is a massive undertaking and completing it is pretty major and requires a lot of dedication. But Kurshan can't stop. She tells us how she memorizes poems while exercising, a practice she started in high school. She tells us of the Big Intellectual books she reads, of the aliyot she learns weekly and to great acclaim, of her triumphant win over the anesthesiologist who wanted to give her an epidural and therefore stop her from "feeling the labor in all its intensity". There's little to no introspection, so the book reads as a litany of Kurshan's superior exercise, reading, praying, studying, and eventually parenting practices (she opts to give up on sleeping by nursing her twin daughters individually instead of together because she needs a hand free to read). If All the Seas Were Ink isn't insightful, it's just brag-y.

The sad part is, Kurshan can actually write quite well. Her descriptions of Jerusalem sent me down my own memory lane, reminiscing about my own time spent there. Kurshan does an excellent job of evoking the specific feel and smells of Israel. This could have been a good book.

Also, Kurshan copies and pastes several essays she wrote for other publications. Which is fine, I guess? I think it's kind of lazy. ( )