Showing posts with label Siyum HaShas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Siyum HaShas. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Friday, September 28, 2012
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Thursday, August 16, 2012
My Victory Over the Nazis by Joseph Friedenson
For me, a survivor of the Holocaust, the Siyum HaShas, the celebration of the completion of learning the Talmud, at MetLife Stadium and large venues around the world [on August 1, 2012], is above all a day of great victory, a day of historical triumph. For me, a graduate of the Warsaw Ghetto, Auschwitz, Oranienburg, Sachsenhausen, Ohrdruf, and Buchenwald, it is a day that testifies loudly and clearly that we Jews are an eternal people, indestructible and everlasting.
As the winds of war were gathering over Europe, and Hitler’s propaganda machine was spewing vicious hatred against the Jews, I remember as a child and then a teen how a great deal of space in Nazi newspapers and magazines, like the infamous Der Sturmer, was devoted to raving tirades directed against the “Jewish Talmud.”
Their philosophy declared that the Talmud was the source of evil of the world. One publication wrote that the Talmud was “der blutkval des Veltjudentum [the blood-font of world Jewry],” embodying, in the Nazi view, the diabolical Jewish essence that threatens the world. The horrible caricatures of the ugly, hook-nosedTalmud Juden increased hatred of the Jews a thousand-fold in those terrible years preceding World War II.
One incident remains eternally etched in my memory, and none of the terrible suffering that I underwent later could erase it.
It was November 1939, at the beginning of the war and just after the Nazis had occupied Poland. Two Nazi officers burst into our home to loot it. I was home with my mother at the time and she gave them money, hoping that they would leave and let us be.
As they were about to make their arrogant exit, one of the Nazis noticed my father’s tall bookcase full ofseforim, holy Jewish books. His eye fell on the beautifully bound Vilna Shas prominently displayed in our bookcase. Apparently, he had never seen such large volumes, so he asked me what books they were. I innocently replied, “It is the Talmud.”
His Face Contorted in Rage
I will never forget the Nazi’s reaction. As if a cauldron of boiling water had fallen on his bare skin, he jumped up, his face contorted in rage. “The Talmud!” he bellowed as he bounded over to the bookcase and ripped one of the volumes of that Talmud from the shelf. Then, with a diabolical hatred and brutality that I had never before witnessed, both Nazis threw the volumes on the floor and began grinding them with their heavy boots. Those books, however, were well-bound and not easily destroyed. So they began ripping the pages and trashing the beautiful set, volume by volume, eventually throwing them out of the window of our apartment into the street below.
The Nazi Beasts Behaved as if They Had Encountered Satan
I recall watching from a corner of the room in horror, as the Nazi beasts behaved as if they had encountered Satan. It took them time but they did not tire, expending enormous energy to destroy my father’s set of Talmud and other holy books.
That pogrom against my father’s holy books remains eternally seared into my mind. It was my first encounter with the inexplicably demonic, rabid hatred of the Nazi beast.
There was, though, indeed a reason for the Nazis’ extreme reaction when they heard the word “Talmud.” An integral component of the anti-Jewish Nazi philosophy was its hatred of the Talmud. In fact, when the Nazis took over Poland, one of the first decrees their chief office of security instituted was that applications for exit visas by Orthodox Jews - Talmud-Lehrers, as they called them - would not be accepted. “The learners and teachers of Talmud have the power to rebuild the Judaism that we seek to destroy,” they said.
As Long as the Talmud Existed, They Would Not Succeed in Mastering the World
They were right, of course, and they also understood that the Talmud embodied all that is holy in this world, including things like humility, service to others and the importance of fighting temptation. Because their world was built on arrogance, self-indulgence, and hedonism, they perceived that as long as the Talmud existed, they would not succeed in mastering the world.
The Nazis also understood that the secret of the eternal survival of the Jewish nation was its attachment to the Talmud, and they thus sought to annihilate Poland’s Jews, who to them symbolized Jews devoted to the Talmud.
Recalling a Siyum HaShas in a Displaced Persons Camp in 1946
I recall celebrating the third Siyum HaShas in November 1946, in the Displaced Persons camp in Feldafing, Germany. We were a tiny group of broken survivors, remnants of a Polish Jewry that had been all but wiped out. At the time, all we had were two volumes of Talmud - symbolic of the pitiful condition of Jewry at the time. At the previous Siyum in Lublin there had been thousands of volumes, and now we were only a few broken Jews with two books.
As we celebrate the 12th Siyum HaShas together with more than 150,000 Jews across North America, and with many tens of thousands more around the world, the feeling that wells up within me is difficult to describe on paper.
Yes, the Nazis indeed understood the secret of Jewish survival. They tried to destroy my father’s holy books, the Talmud that has preserved the Jews throughout the ages. But they failed. For the Jews are an eternal people, and the Talmud is eternal.
We may be persecuted, demonized, and murdered, but as long as we hold onto our tradition that has been passed from generation to generation, we cannot be extinguished!
Just look at the miraculous rejuvenation of Torah Judaism not even 70 years after the Holocaust. Back then, no one, including ourselves, ever believed that hundreds of thousands would gather together for no other reason than to celebrate the study of Talmud.
Not Only is the Talmud Still Alive
Not only is the Talmud still alive, but from those two forlorn volumes of Gemara that remained after the conflagration, from the ashes of the greatest tragedy in modern history, the greatest rejuvenation in modern history has happened before our eyes. The day of the Siyum HaShas is my day of victory, the day of victory for all survivors and the day of victory of every “Talmud Jew.”
This article appeared in the Hasiyum book distributed at the 12th Siyum HaShas and is reprinted here with permission from Agudath Israel of America.
Sunday, August 12, 2012
"Prayer for Welfare of State of Israel" (Sung by Cantor Chaim Adler)
Chaim Adler, Chief Cantor, Jerusalem Great Synagogue sings at special event held every 7 years, the Siyum Hashas** (9 Aug, '12).http://www.YouTube.com/ClipsNBlips to subscribe free for quick updates or Tweet ClipsNBlips
PRAYER FOR THE WELFARE OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL
by The Chief Rabbinate of Israel
Our Father Who are in Heaven,
Protector and Redeemer of Israel,
bless Thou the State of Israel
which marks the dawn of our deliverance.
Shield it beneath the wings of Thy love;
Spread over it Thy canopy of peace;
send Thy light and Thy truth to its leaders, officers,
and counselors, and direct them with Thy good counsel.
O G-d, strengthen the defenders of our Holy Land;
grant them salvation and crown them with victory.
Establish peace in the land, and everlasting joy for its inhabitants.
Remember our brethren, the whole house of Israel,
in all the lands of their dispersion.
Speedily let them walk upright to Zion, the city, to Jerusalem
Thy dwelling-place, as it is written in the Torah of Thy servant Moses:
"Even if you are dispersed in the uttermost parts of the world,
from there the L-rd your G-d will gather and fetch you.
The L-rd your G-d will bring you into the land
which your fathers possessed,
and you shall possess it."
Unite our heart to love and revere Thy Name,
and to observe all the precepts of Thy Torah.
Shine forth in Thy glorious majesty over all the inhabitants of Thy world.
Let everything that breathes proclaim:
The L-rd G-d of Israel is King;
His majesty rules over all."
Amen.
From WNYC New York, an outlet that covered the Siyum, and did it very well
From WNYC New York, an outlet that covered the Siyum, and did it very well:
Read more: http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2012/08/10/good-siyum-hashas-coverage/#ixzz23LaUvHzr
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution
Thursday, August 9, 2012
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
CROSS-CURRENTS: The Siyum: Where Was The Press? By Yitzchok Adlerstein
One concern disturbed my reverie at the Los Angeles celebration of the siyum. Where had all the press gone? By the time I was on my way home, however, I realized that the press’ cold shoulder was cause for celebration, not disappointment.
From what we heard from Angelinos who made the trip to MetLife Stadium, nothing could duplicate the heady feeling of joining 90,000 people in a lovefest for Torah. Yet, the 2500 people who converged on the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in the heart of downtown Los Angeles certainly felt that they were participants in spirit with the main event. We had the benefit of a direct link to New Jersey , and availed ourselves of parts of the program (including LA favorite son Shlomo Yehuda Rechnitz, the emcee), substituting our own mesayem and maschil.
Months of preparation had gone into the local event. We were prepared for the press. We sent multiple releases to all media outlets within range, prepared press packets, and set up a press table.
No one covered the event. No one at all, other than the local Jewish (i.e. generally dismissive or worse of the Orthodox world) newspaper. Seven years ago, as well as the siyum before that, and the siyum before that, they had shown much interest. The LA Times had devoted journalists and column inches each time; radio and television provided coverage and conducted interviews. What had we done wrong?
I kept pondering this, even as I took in the spirit, the joy, the enthusiasm, and watched as guests from outside our community got a rare glimpse into the inner life of the Orthodox world. One of my responsibilities was to help make those guests comfortable; I was seated with the politicians and other community VIPs. Next to me was Israel’s Consul-General in LA, who is not Orthodox, but has traditional leanings. I took pride in his appreciation of Chananya Kramer’s moving video of the history of the Daf. He took in the spectrum of Orthodoxy assembled in the hall, mirroring that of the East Coast event. As he left, he remarked that he could appreciate that he should devote more time and energy in this community. (Agudah, I believe, did an excellent job in courting as many different communities as possible, including YU, and refusing to back down on the major role given to Rabbi Lau. Quite fairly, it provided opportunities for Yiddish presentations, in recognition not only of the large chassidishe entourage, but of the seminal role played by chassidim in the success of the daf. Would the project ever have picked up momentum had not the Gerer Rebbe zt”l picked up a gemara Berachos after maariv on Rosh Hashanah in 1923, and thereby created a tidal wave of interest in the new project? In Los Angeles, we followed suit – although we did without the Yiddish. We invited and enjoyed broad participation. The mesayem was a physician, not a rov, who marked the completion of his fourth cycle as a magid shiur. He is also a mainstay of the LA branch of the Religious Zionists of America. Rabbi Lau was introduced by a YU musmach – Rabbi Elazar Muskin of Young Israel of Century City.)
Later that evening, a major entertainment figure arrived. Non-observant but deeply prideful of his Jewishness, he told me how he was taken in by the event, as well as by considering what it means to complete the study of all of the Talmud. He confessed that a colleague of his made the trip to New Jersey to take in the program at the larger venue!
This was such an important happening for the Orthodox community, and such a hugely successful event! How could the press snub us entirely? (OK, the LA Times is excused. They published my op-ed about the siyum a few days before.) To be sure, there were some glitches, but the press could not have known about them, nor would they provide an excuse to stay away. Truth be told, those glitches in the timing of the NJ event told us more about speakers completely out of touch with the needs of the audience they were addressing than about the organizers. One of my sons asked a NJ State Trooper what he thought, and he deliciously replied, “I learned that rabbis like to speak.” Agudah had specified how long speakers were supposed to go, and had light signals prepared to remind presenters to wind down. They did everything short of killing the mic, like they do at the Oscars. (Next time, ask us!) I am constantly perplexed by knowledgeable people ignoring a maamar Chazal on the pasuk ויהי ביוןם כלות משה It states that if a person’s words are as pleasing to his audience as a kallah to her choson he should speak; if not, he should remain silent. Thousands of people had to leave the stadium to catch the last NJ train and miss the united maariv that was one of the main reasons they came. I cannot believe that those people found the speakers who ignored the rules pleasing like a kallah. Maybe those speakers had bad memories of their chasunas. On the other hand, not unexpectedly, Rav Shmuel Kamenetsky shlit”a got it right, and spoke for five minutes.
Readers probably took less time figuring out the explanation for the press’ absence than I did that evening. The press ignored us – at least outside of the Big Event – because there was nothing newsworthy in the event anymore. In the past, the Orthodox community was seen as somewhat exotic, one of those Strangers In Our Midst communities. And who knew about the Talmud? Journalists like the exotic, and yawn at the pedestrian and ordinary.
Now, in 2012, we frum Jews are no longer exotic. The rest of the world knows plenty about us. We are visible, and no longer entirely peripheral. Yarmulkes are everywhere, and people know of our criminals and our problem with protecting abusers. They know about our large families and our relatively low divorce rate. They know that “Jewish Republican” is not an oxymoron. They know of the Talmud, too. They know that its study is important enough to a large group in Israel that a coalition recently fell apart because of a conflict about what to do about the Talmud and its tens of thousands of students.
Without anything fascinating or forbidden to offer, we were competing with too much in a fast-moving world to expect coverage. (I must agree in part with Dr Schick. While the women’s issue was fair game for journalists – and those of us handling press anticipated it well in advance – it should not have drowned out the enormity of what happened at MetLife. The gemara (Berachos 17A) has sharp condemnation for the non-Jews of Masa Mechasya who twice-yearly witnessed the majesty of Torah in the large conclaves before Yom Tov, and nonetheless were not moved to convert! It is hard to understand how any journalist, no matter what he or she planned to write about before coming to the siyum, could not have been moved by what transpired inside, and been moved to change the submission.)
We should not be saddened by the fact that our smaller gatherings were passé to the press. We should be happy that we are so well situated within the greater cultural surround that we can move forward on the real significance of the siyum. That significance was given full-throated voice by Rabbi Lau, in what to me was the most memorable one liner of the evening. Rabbi Lau related to the pasuk (Tehilim 83:5) “Come, let us cut them off from nationhood, so Israel’s name will not be remembered any longer.” Many have hated us so thoroughly, that they sought to not only annihilate us, but to erase the name Yisrael. The siyum made that impossible. In the first time in the history of humanity, a group of close to 100,000 people came together to celebrate their love for a law book!
This was kiddush Hashem, plain and simple. And kiddush Hashem becomes easier – not harder – the more mainstream and accepted we are. The press turned down one event, hinting to us that we have many more kiddush Hashem opportunities every other day, in our interaction with more and more of our fellow citizens.
One organization – about which I know nothing – got is seriously right. It left cards on seats. One side read, “Tonight a momentous kiddush Hashem. Tomorrow it continues with You!” The flip side made it short, easy and practical. It urged people to consider whether their behavior constituted kiddush Hashem in the way they drive, in greeting people warmly, and in dealing honestly in business.
It ended with the perfect epilogue to the siyum. “As you go about your day, you will encounter and influence many people (wife, kids, work, friends, etc.) Your facial expressions, the way you handle money, the way you drive, your ‘please’ and ‘thank-you’ are watched by all. Let those interactions be sweet, leaving a trail of true kiddush Hashem.”
With all those opportunities for kiddush Hashem, who needs the media?
Read more: http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2012/08/06/the-siyum-where-was-the-press/#ixzz22sCD3E18
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution
Monday, August 6, 2012
90,000 Jews Dancing at Siyum Hashas
Most people seemed to agree, the most inspiring moment of the Siyum Hashas at MetLife stadium was the 15 minutes of music and dance. 90,000 Yidden, Kein Yirbu.
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
The Siyum HaShas
Tomorrow evening, some 93,000 Jews will gather in MetLife Stadium, along with hundreds of thousands of other Jews worldwide (including in Tel Aviv's Nokia Stadium and Jerusalem's Teddy Stadium), to celebrate the 12th Siyum HaShas of Daf Yomi.
Daf Yomi is a study program initiated in the 1920s by Rabbi Meir Shapiro of Poland. His idea was that Jews worldwide would study a folio (2 pages) of Talmud every day, in sync. The entire Talmud - 2,711 folios - would be completed in roughly seven and a half years. (The English Artscroll translation spans 73 volumes, and each folio of Talmud is between 6-10 English pages.)
The Siyum HaShas is the celebration of the completion of the entire Babylonian Talmud.
Think about it: Every day, tens of thousands of Jews take time out to study the day's "Daf." Many go to lectures in synagogues or in ad-hoc workplace conference rooms, and some have been doing it on theLong Island Railroad for over twenty years. Lectures usually take an hour or so.
Others started off the current cycle in 2005 listening to lectures on cassette tapes or CDs; now many listen on MP3 players, or online. Still others learn it in pairs, or by themselves.
Through business trips, holidays, births, bar mitzvahs and weddings, the people who follow the program kept going.
The Talmud, the richest source of the Jewish legal tradition, discusses every conceivable topic, from fanciful stories of ancient rabbis to heavily detailed discussions of the dimensions of every portion of the Temple and all its parts, from the laws of blessings to the laws of sex, from geometry to astronomy. It records intricate arguments using a unique logical framework, painstakingly parsing every letter in some Torah verses to extract hidden meanings. Pairs of rabbis became famous for their arguments with each other - Hillel and Shammai, Rav and Shmuel, Abaye and Rava.
The arguments are perhaps the most fascinating, and integral, part of the Talmud. The two sides must not only back up their arguments, but they must show how their arguments are consistent with the teachings of earlier, more authoritative rabbis, how they are not redundant, and how they are consistent with their own teachings in other areas of law. Each side would bring challenges to the others' arguments and they must defend themselves, each building an edifice of logic that ensures consistency even as they come to different conclusions. (Or, as often happens, one of them fails and cannot answer the final challenge. ) Sometimes the arguments are three- or four-way, and sometimes there are disagreements as to what the earlier arguments were, where the later interpreters must defend their own ideas of the basis of the earlier discussions.
(And this is only in the Talmud itself - I'm not even talking about the arguments among the commentaries, written hundreds of years later!)
Seeming non-sequitors are introduced, and it can take pages before their relevance to the topic at hand is revealed. Stories can be brought up which brings up more stories; questions are not just asked on how rabbis thought but on how they acted.
Jews learn to argue from the Talmud.
And, in a sense, much of the entire Western legal system was heavily influenced by the Talmud as well, through the early innovators such as John Seiden, who was amazingly proficient in portions of Talmudic law. (The entire Mishnah - which outlines the Talmud - was translated into Latin in the late 17th century, along with commentaries by Maimonides and the Bartenura; here it is.)
To study the entire Talmud is a remarkable achievement, and it is almost beyond belief that so many people have managed to do it. The current Daf Yomi cycle started before Twitter existed, before Facebook was anything beyond a college phenomenon, before the iPhone. Over seven years of dogged study have occurred in every Jewish community worldwide.
Daf Yomi is a modern manifestation of Jewish unity - and a remarkable proof of Jewish continuity.
The Siyum is a real celebration for every Jew, whether you have ever studied Talmud or not.
But even if you haven't - the new cycle starts on Thursday. Feel free to join!
Daf Yomi is a study program initiated in the 1920s by Rabbi Meir Shapiro of Poland. His idea was that Jews worldwide would study a folio (2 pages) of Talmud every day, in sync. The entire Talmud - 2,711 folios - would be completed in roughly seven and a half years. (The English Artscroll translation spans 73 volumes, and each folio of Talmud is between 6-10 English pages.)
The Siyum HaShas is the celebration of the completion of the entire Babylonian Talmud.
Think about it: Every day, tens of thousands of Jews take time out to study the day's "Daf." Many go to lectures in synagogues or in ad-hoc workplace conference rooms, and some have been doing it on theLong Island Railroad for over twenty years. Lectures usually take an hour or so.
Others started off the current cycle in 2005 listening to lectures on cassette tapes or CDs; now many listen on MP3 players, or online. Still others learn it in pairs, or by themselves.
 |
| Sample page of Artscroll translation of theTalmud |
The Talmud, the richest source of the Jewish legal tradition, discusses every conceivable topic, from fanciful stories of ancient rabbis to heavily detailed discussions of the dimensions of every portion of the Temple and all its parts, from the laws of blessings to the laws of sex, from geometry to astronomy. It records intricate arguments using a unique logical framework, painstakingly parsing every letter in some Torah verses to extract hidden meanings. Pairs of rabbis became famous for their arguments with each other - Hillel and Shammai, Rav and Shmuel, Abaye and Rava.
The arguments are perhaps the most fascinating, and integral, part of the Talmud. The two sides must not only back up their arguments, but they must show how their arguments are consistent with the teachings of earlier, more authoritative rabbis, how they are not redundant, and how they are consistent with their own teachings in other areas of law. Each side would bring challenges to the others' arguments and they must defend themselves, each building an edifice of logic that ensures consistency even as they come to different conclusions. (Or, as often happens, one of them fails and cannot answer the final challenge. ) Sometimes the arguments are three- or four-way, and sometimes there are disagreements as to what the earlier arguments were, where the later interpreters must defend their own ideas of the basis of the earlier discussions.
(And this is only in the Talmud itself - I'm not even talking about the arguments among the commentaries, written hundreds of years later!)
 |
| Page from Latin translation of Mishnah |
Jews learn to argue from the Talmud.
And, in a sense, much of the entire Western legal system was heavily influenced by the Talmud as well, through the early innovators such as John Seiden, who was amazingly proficient in portions of Talmudic law. (The entire Mishnah - which outlines the Talmud - was translated into Latin in the late 17th century, along with commentaries by Maimonides and the Bartenura; here it is.)
To study the entire Talmud is a remarkable achievement, and it is almost beyond belief that so many people have managed to do it. The current Daf Yomi cycle started before Twitter existed, before Facebook was anything beyond a college phenomenon, before the iPhone. Over seven years of dogged study have occurred in every Jewish community worldwide.
Daf Yomi is a modern manifestation of Jewish unity - and a remarkable proof of Jewish continuity.
The Siyum is a real celebration for every Jew, whether you have ever studied Talmud or not.
But even if you haven't - the new cycle starts on Thursday. Feel free to join!
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