Yeshiva University Scholars Reflect on the Daf Yomi Phenomenon

Last night some 90,000 people gathered at the MetLife stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey for a ceremony celebrating the 12th completion of the daily reading of the Talmud (Siyum ha-Shas). The event followed similar ceremonies, in Jerusalem,Tel Aviv, Bnei Brak, London, Melbourne, and other cities and communities around the world, in which thousands more participated in person or via closed-circuit TV.

Tens of thousands celebrated the conclusion of the a seven-and-a-half-year Daf Yomi cycle on August 1.

These events honor the conclusion and re-commencement of a seven-and-a-half-year cycle in which people—individually, with partners, or in groups—learn a folio page (two facing pages) of the Babylonian Talmud each day in a tradition known as daf yomi, “a page a day.”

The tradition was established by Rabbi Meir Shapiro, the Hasidic rebbe of Lublin. Rabbi Shapiro proposed the idea to the Agudath Israel convention in Vienna in August, 1923, and the enterprise was launched with much fanfare the following Rosh Hashanah. Over the course of the 12 cycles completed thus far, the number of learners has burgeoned to many tens of thousands around the world.

To mark the occasion, Jewish Ideas Daily invited several prominent thinkers, including Yeshiva University’s Rabbi Dr. Jacob J. Schacter and Moshe Sokolow to reflect on the phenomenon of daf yomi and their own engagement with the practice. Read the rest of this entry…

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Rabbi Yona Reiss: Why the Siyum HaShas is Good for Jewish Unity

When Rabbi Meir Shapiro zt”l introduced the Daf Yomi learning cycle in 1923, little was it recognized that he was about to affect a major transformation in the enterprise of Torah learning throughout the world.

Now, almost 90 years later, the learning of Daf Yomi is one of the most visible symbols of Torah study throughout the Jewish community. Shiurim, kollelim and study groups abound that are immersed in the daily dissection of the Daf.

A recent retrospective on the life of Rav Yaakov Kamenetzky zt”l quoted him as having said that if not for his daily Daf Yomi routine, there were days when his necessary preoccupation with communal affairs might have prevented him from having a regular period of Torah study. Indeed, Daf Yomi has injected a sense of daily learning constancy for countless adherents. Read the rest of this entry…

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