Avodah Zarah 3

In 1890, factory workers in the United States worked an average of 100 hours a week. In the 1880s, the nascent workers’ rights movement had a popular slogan: “Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, eight hours for what you will.” Labor organizers divided the 24-hour day into thirds, and insisted that workers had the right to be able to make choices about how they spent at least some of their time. On today’s daf, the Talmud asks a related question: How does an all-powerful, all-knowing God divide up God’s day? The Talmud shares a very detailed answer:

Rav Yehuda say that Rav says: There are 12 hours in the day. The first three, the Holy One, Blessed be He, sits and engages in Torah. The second three, He sits and judges the entire world. Once He sees that the world has rendered itself liable to destruction, He arises from the throne of judgment and sits on the throne of mercy. The third three, He sits and sustains the entire world, from the horns of wild oxen to the eggs of lice. 

Rav imagines that God divides the day into fourths. God starts with Torah study (we already learned in Gittin 67b that God has a Heavenly yeshiva, so we know where God studies!). Next, God re-establishes justice in the world through judgement tempered by mercy. Then God feeds all living creatures and makes sure that everything down to the smallest (and itchiest) creatures have what they need. And what of the last quarter of God’s day?

The fourth three, He sits and makes sport with the leviathan, as it is stated: “There is leviathan, whom You have formed to sport with.” (Psalms 104:26)

In the last quarter of God’s day, God plays. Where you or I might have a dog or cat as an animal companion, God’s animal companion is the leviathan, an enormous sea serpent, sometimes depicted as multi-headed (Psalm 74:14). The verb here, mesachek, is the same verb used in modern Hebrew to describe playing with dolls or playing a sport. Sports might be serious business, but they are also fun — a joyful moment to release tension and find solidarity in a team or in one’s playmates. There is something so moving about thinking of God as taking a quarter of the day to play. Where the labor movement wanted workers to have eight hours for themselves, the rabbis imagine that, after a long day’s work, God too has set aside time to do something for Godself.

But the Talmud’s story doesn’t end there.

Rav Aha said to Rav Nahman bar Yitzhak: From the day the Temple was destroyed, there is no longer any making sport for the Holy One, Blessed be He. And from where do we derive that there is no making sport? … From this verse: “I have long time held My peace, I have been still, and refrained Myself; now will I cry like a travailing woman, gasping and panting at once.” (Isaiah 42:14)

With the destruction of the Temple, God has ceased to play with God’s creations. The time for games is over. We often think of the destruction of the Temple as bringing sorrow and sadness to the Jewish people — and it did. But Rav Acha insists that it also brought sorrow and sadness to God (and also to the leviathan, who has lost his playmate through no fault of his own). 

What does He now do during the fourth? He sits and teaches Torah to schoolchildren, as it is stated: “Whom shall one teach knowledge? And whom shall one make to understand the message? Them that are weaned from the milk, them that are drawn from the breasts.” (Isaiah 28:9)

Now, God spends this time teaching children — not to the smartest and most intellectually sharp rabbinical students, but those who are just at the age of weaning. And while this work is hard, as anyone who has taught nursery school can tell you, it is also joyful in its own way.

The rabbinic tradition about how God spends God’s day offers us a model for a full life: one with Torah, work and joy. It is a model in which every moment counts and helps us become well-rounded people. And this model is not oblivious to the suffering of the world around us, but takes it into account by finding ways to be joyful while continuing the work.

Read all of Avodah Zarah 3 on Sefaria.

This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on June 20, 2025. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.