Topics in this digest: Vayakhel 5765
by Rabbi Dr. Barry Leff
Over three thousand years ago, there was a gathering of the Jewish people
to study Torah. This week’s Torah portion, Vayakhel, opens with the
words:
“And Moses gathered all the congregation of the people of Israel together
and said to them, These are the words which the Lord has commanded, that
you should do them.”
This past Tuesday night I was at another gathering of the people of
Israel. I was in New York City, at Madison Square Garden, fulfilling a
promise I made to myself seven and a half years ago, before I had even
decided to become a rabbi.
Seven and a half years ago I was living in the San Francisco Bay Area,
working as an executive for a high-tech company. We were relatively
observant, and were regular shul goers, but my Hebrew abilities were
pretty marginal. Sure, I could recite the prayers, but I didn’t really
have a lot of understanding of what they meant. I had started going to a
once a week Talmud class given by a Chabad rabbi, and I took an online
Introduction to Talmud course offered by JTS, but I certainly couldn’t
study a page of Talmud without an English translation in front of me.
I read an article in the local Jewish newspaper about this huge
celebration that was held in Madison Square Garden where thousands of Jews
were gathered together to celebrate completing the study of the entire
Babylonian Talmud. They had all completed a program called the “Daf
Yomi,” where if you study a daf of Talmud every day (a daf is a two-sided
page) in seven and a half years you can complete the study of the entire
Talmud. I read about that celebration, and having recently celebrated
Simchat Torah and enjoying the feeling of completion that comes when you
read the whole Torah, even in translation, I decided I was going to give
it shot. I decided that I was going to start doing this daf yomi program,
I was going to study a page of Talmud every day, and in seven and a half
years I was going to go to Madison Square Garden to be a part of the next
celebration.
So on Tuesday night, I was there. Having studied 5,422 pages of dense
Aramaic, I was enjoying my reward of being a part of that crowd
celebrating the completion of the study of the Talmud. What I would like
to do this morning is share with you some of the things I learned and some
of the things I felt at this amazing gathering of Jews.
First, by way of background, a word on why the Talmud is so important.
Why do we make such a big deal over the Talmud? It’s because it is really
in many ways the heart Judaism. If you want to know what Judaism is all
about, and you are only going to turn to one source, that source would not
be the Torah—it would be the Talmud. For the Talmud contains the rabbis
understanding of how we apply all those teachings in the Torah. The Torah
tells us to observe the Sabbath—but the Talmud tells us what that means
and
how to do it. All the things we do to make Shabbat Shabbat: lighting
candles on Friday night, saying blessings over wine and bread, blessing
our children, enjoying a nice meal with friends and family—these are all
things we learn NOT from the Torah, but from the Talmud. The Talmud has
law, legend, superstition, and a unique way of approaching the world. In
the Talmud you learn how to argue well, and you learn to respect other
opinions. One of the things I love about studying Talmud is that it feels
like “intellectual archeology.” When I study a page of Talmud I feel like
I’m sitting in the study hall with these great rabbis listening to both
their legal arguments and their personal anecdotes.
So on Tuesday I got some more anecdotes to add to my personal Talmud. My
feeling of connection to other Jews started right when I got on the subway
at 72nd street—there were a few “black hats” sitting near me, discussing
which subway stop to get off for Madison Square Garden. When we got to
our stop at Penn Station it was already quite an interesting sight to
see—hundreds of Orthodox Jews all walking in the same direction, all
streaming toward the Garden. The only other time I’ve been part of
something like that was on Shavuot in Jerusalem, where, at 4 in the
morning, Jews from all over the city are walking toward the Western Wall
after being up all night studying.
Madison Square Garden was full--it was a sold out house. 30,000 Jews.
Not only were there 30,000 of us at the Garden, but we were linked
electronically via satellite with large screen displays with similar
gatherings in other places—Continental Arena in Newark, as well as
gatherings in places like Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, and for the first
time since the Holocaust, Jews in the home of the Daf Yomi idea, Lublin,
Poland, also celebrated the siyum. All together there were 100,000 Jews
all studying the same piece of Torah together at the same time, linked in
person and electronically.
The story told in this week’s Torah portion – that Moses gathered the
people together and told them what God commanded, in other words they
studied Torah together – took place at Mt. Sinai. One of the speakers at
the siyum, the Bostoner Rebbe, observed our gathering of 100,000 was the
biggest crowd to be together all studying the same piece of Torah, since
that gathering at Mt. Sinai. Now there’s an amazing idea!
Madison Square Garden was turned into the world’s largest Orthodox
synagogue, with men on the main floor and lower levels and women up in the
balcony. We started with saying the afternoon prayers. The intention and
focus of the prayer leader was amazing: he was clearly on the verge of
tears several times during the repetition of the Amidah, he truly had his
whole heart in the words he was saying as he was praying for our communal
health, prosperity, and ingathering from exile. Saying “Amen” together
with 30,000 other Jews is definitely something to experience.
I was reminded of the teaching from Proverbs (14:28) “In the multitude of
people is the King’s Glory” which is elaborated in the Talmud (Brachot
53a) where we learn that it’s better that people should pray together,
rather than each one pray for himself, because “In the multitude of people
is the King's glory.”
The Daf Yomi program is a relatively recent innovation. It was started by
Rabbi Meir Shapira, the rabbi of Lublin, Poland, in 1923. Jews had been
studying Talmud since before it was written down; Rabbi Shapira’s
innovation was to suggest a schedule whereby Jews all over the world would
study the same page of Talmud on a given day, which would allow someone
who
was traveling to find other people to study with who were studying the
same
page of Talmud. The idea caught on, leading to the most recent completion
of the cycle.
In 1923, Europe was the great center for Jewish learning. In those days
before the Holocaust, the vast majority of the world’s great scholars in
Jewish learning were in Europe. The celebration of the siyum was made in
honor of the 6 million Jews who perished in the Holocaust, and especially
as a kind of honor to the Torah scholars and learning that was lost. In
honor of the European roots of the Daf Yomi, several of the speakers at
the siyum spoke in Yiddish. I had to buy one of the $10 headsets over
which they provided a simultaneous translation to understand what they
were saying. R. Chaskel Beser said in his introduction that when he first
came to America 60 years ago they called it a “treife medina,” an “impure
land.” He said he never imagined there would be 100,000 Jews in America
all celebrating completing the Talmud.
There are some Jews who believe that the days of the Messiah, the era of
great peace and harmony, will be preceded by a very difficult period, the
“birthpangs of the Messiah.” Not unlike what we went through with the
Holocaust. There is a teaching in the Talmud which says one famous rabbi
said he did not want to see the Messiah, because he did not want to have
to live through the painful period leading up to it. R. Chaim Stein from
the Telshe Yeshiva in Cleveland said that the Daf program was in a way a
Jewish preparation for the difficult days ahead in the Holocaust. R.
Stein said we prepare for the difficult days is by studying Torah and
doing acts of kindness. He said it is the responsibility of every Jew who
survived the Holocaust to help rebuild Torah, to learn and study, and
rebuild the learning that was destroyed by the Nazis.
R. Stein started doing the Daf Yomi in 1938. He was given the honor of
doing the actual siyum, the actual teaching completing our studying the
last page of the Talmud.
We’re now going to do our own siyum, we will study the last teaching in
the Talmud. I’m very glad so many of you were able to come today to help
me celebrate!
And the completion of the Talmud is your party too. Just as many of you
are here to help Alexx celebrate a milestone in her Jewish learning—her
bat mitzvah—the completion of the daf yomi cycle is a celebration for all
Jews as well.
One of the speakers, Rabbi Hershkowitz, shared an interesting story. He
said someone approached him a few days before the siyyum, saying he was
thinking of going, but thought that perhaps he shouldn't because he didn't
study the whole Talmud so it's not his party. The rabbi said, "no, of
course you should go (if you can get a ticket). This is a celebration for
all Israel. The ones who didn't complete help the ones who did celebrate.
We are all "machatunim" (parents of the bride and groom).
So here we go, completing the Talmud:
The last teaching in the Talmud (Niddah 73a) says:
“The Tanna debe Eliyahu [teaches]: Whoever learns halachas, Jewish
teachings, every day is assured that he will have a place in the World To
Come, for it is said, Halikoth — the world is his; (Chabakuk 3:6) read
not halikoth but halakoth.”
The Tanna brings proof from a verse that by learning some halacha,
something about Jewish law every day you are assured a place in the world
to come. In a way this passage is the foundation for the great reverence
that Jews have traditionally placed on learning—which may be one reason
why we are so over-represented in professions that rely on learning, like
law, medicine, and science.
R. Stein tied this to a teaching from the Tur, a 14th century code of
Jewish law: After beginning the day at services in the synagogue followed
by a period of Torah study, we are to go off to work, "because Torah
without a livelihood will eventually come undone and turn into sin. For if
we have nothing to eat, poverty will soon bring us to violate God's word.
Nevertheless, we ought not to make our livelihood primary but secondary.
The study of Torah should be the center of our lives as it was for the
early pietists, who made their livelihood secondary and the study of Torah
primary and both flourished" (Orah Hayyim 156).
The ideal for a Jew traditionally has been to combine Torah with derech
eretz, to combine learning with making a living—but you should remember
that learning is the thing that’s really important.
It’s difficult to make time to study every day. During the last seven and
a half years I’ve learned to squeeze in a few minutes of learning Talmud
on
coffee breaks, at lunch, on occasion even when stuck in traffic. All too
often I do some learning at 11:30 at night when my mind is not at it’s
sharpest.
But our rabbis teach that this is the path not only to eternal life, but
to a better life in this world. Now there are some people who say, well,
I’m too busy now, I’ll study …and insert your favorite future time here:
when the kids are all back to school, when I get the next promotion, when
I make partner, when I retire. But to that the great rabbi Hillel said,
“do not say I will study when I have leisure, for perhaps you will never
have leisure.”
Reverence for study and learning Torah is something that binds all Jews
together. Several of the speakers pointed out this was a great
celebration of Clal Yisrael, of all the people of Israel. They spoke
about how there were Ashkenazi and Sefardi Jews, Chassidic Jews, Jews from
all over the world celebrating together. One harsh note for me, however,
was when R. Shmuel Bloom, the Exec VP of Agudath Israel said “we have Jews
who go to Agudath synagogues, who go to Chasidic synagogues, who go to OU
synagogues all together.” Not mentioning at all that there were also Jews
there—at least one—who goes to a Conservative synagogue!
But in a way I can’t blame him—mine was a lonely grey hat in a sea of
black hats.
There are three times as many Conservative Jews than Orthodox Jews in
America. Torah is just as much our legacy it is their legacy. Torah is
the spiritual heritage of all Jews, regardless of what kind of synagogue
you go to. Yet the Orthodox managed to fill Madison Square Garden with
people who studied the entire Talmud. We could probably fit all the
Conservative Jews who studied the entire Talmud in the last seven and half
years comfortably into our chapel, let alone this sanctuary.
Seven and a half years ago, reading about other people completing the daf
yomi inspired me to give it a shot. I’m hoping that my sharing the story
of completing the daf will inspire you to do the same. The last seven and
a half years have been a time of amazing learning for me, and I hope the
next seven and a half years will be a time of amazing learning for all of
us.
One of the speakers, R. Hershkowitz talked about how he never finishes a
lesson with the end of a chapter—he always leaves a little something over,
or starts something else. You should not be content that you finished a
chapter—or that you finished the whole shas, the whole Talmud. You need
to start over, keep going.
I hope that Alexx today feels the way I did on Tuesday night. Not a
feeling of “wow, I did it, I’m done,” but rather a feeling like “nice
milestone—now let’s keep learning.” Because for a Jew, learning is a
lifelong enterprise. It’s just like exercise and diet. If you go on a
diet and start working out every day, you can feel good when you reach
your goal. But if you quit working out, you’re going to get fat again.
Reaching your goal does not mean you’re done and finished and can sit on
your tuchas.
So having just finished the Talmud, let’s start over.
The very first teaching in the Talmud, Brachot 2a, says
“From when do we recite the evening Shema?” Rabbi Hershkowitz brought a
teaching from the Yerushalmi, the Palestinian Talmud, which focuses on the
word “korin,” recites. The word is written in the plural form. Why is it
written in the plural form? To teach us that everyone must recite the
Shema for himself—it’s not enough to have someone else say it for you.
It’s the same way with Jewish learning. You can’t have someone else do it
for you. Not your spouse and definitely not your rabbi. We all need to do
our own learning and take ownership of it. If you want to start studying
the daf yomi, Artscroll has a great English translation of the whole
thing, with explanatory footnotes that really make it possible to study on
your own. You can buy it a volume at a time—and you’ll go through a volume
every six weeks or so. There are great resources available on the
internet.
Another speaker, Rabbi Frand, said last time there were 50,000 people
celebrating the siyum, this time there were 100,000. He said a big part
of the reason why is the inspiration of this event. Studying the Talmud
is not elitist anymore. He said when people see their friends doing it,
they get an attitude of “if you can do it, I can too.” Nothing encourages
people like the knowledge that other people are doing it too, there’s a
real ripple effect. I did it, I at least got started, when I was a lay
person, just like you. You can do it too. God willing, in seven and a
half years there will be a lot more “gray hats” at Madison Square Garden.
If studying the whole Talmud seems too ambitious for you, pick something
else. If you read a chapter of the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible every
day—something which takes about five or ten minutes—in two and a half
years you will have read the whole thing. Or pick up a contemporary
Jewish book and read a little something from it every day.
May God strengthen us in our efforts to learn and to teach and to grow.
May the Torah we learn inspire us to deeds of charity and kindness and to
more learning.
Amen.
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