On, Aug. 1, corresponding to the 13th of Av, 5772, thousands of people around the world will celebrate as they finish studying the 73rd page of the Tractate Niddah and thereby complete their study of the Talmud, known as Siyum Hashas. The very next day, they will begin learning the first tractate of the Talmud, Brachot. And they will continue in this shared learning experience until the entire Talmud is next completed on the seventh of Tevet, 5780 (Jan. 4, 2020)!
In the 1920s, Rabbi Meir Shapiro, the Lubliner Rav of Poland, had a ground-breaking idea: to unite Jews everywhere by having each of them study exactly the same text of Talmud on a daily basis. By reading a double-sided page (daf) a day (yomi), they would complete the Talmud’s 2,711 pages in approximately seven years. [http://bit.ly/dafyomi10]
Rabbi Shapiro’s vision has caught on. When the 11th Daf Yomi cycle was completed in March 2005, thousands of people crowded into Madison Square Garden and were linked by satellite with dozens of other communities around the world. [http://bit.ly/dafyomi11] You can watch a video of the late Bostoner Rebbe Levi Yitzchok Horowitz, as he explained the importance of the moment to the gathered crowd. [http://bit.ly/dafyomi12]
Written in Hebrew and Aramaic, the Talmud is the often-terse compendium of law, logic and philosophy that became the foundation for modern Judaism. Eric Chevlen does a very good job explaining the importance of the Talmud, its component sections of Mishnah and Gemara, as well as his own early challenges in learning a daf a day. [http://bit.ly/dafyomi13]
The best way to learn Talmud is under the guidance of a teacher or with a knowledgeable friend. But there are many online resources that can also help. The premier daf yomi site on the Web belongs to the Dafyomi Advancement Forum. [http://bit.ly/dafyomi16]
Why do so many people drag themselves out of bed, year after year, to learn the Talmud? Herman Wouk, author of This is My God and The Winds of War, explains: “Because by now the Talmud is in my bones. Its elegant and arcane ethical algebra, its soaked-in quintessential Jewishness, its fun, its difficulty, its accumulative virtue all balance against the cost in time and the so-called ‘remoteness from reality.’ Above and beyond all its other intellectual and cultural values, the Talmud is, for people like us, ‘identity,’ pure and ever springing.” [http://bit.ly/dafyomi19]
Rabbi Aryeh Markman elected to complete the Talmud at the relatively leisurely pace of 15 years, but it had no less profound an effect. He writes, “As I stand in the end zone, I am reminded of the story of the man who went to the Kotzker Rebbe and announced with great pride: ‘I went through Shas, the entire Talmud.’ At that, the Kotzker looked at him and said, ‘Very nice. Now tell me, did the Shas go through you?’
“Talmud study is all about changing oneself. Becoming wiser, more Jewishly committed, more connected to the Source of it all. They say that prayer is man’s way of talking to God, and Talmud study is God talking to man. After 15 years, I’m starting to really listen.” [http://bit.ly/dafyomi20]