So, today is somewhat of a special day.  But, before you will understand why it’s special, I need to give you a little background.

We Jewish folks have what’s called two Torot (the plural of Tora).  Tora Bichtiv and Tora she B’al Pe…The written Tora and the Oral Tora.  The written Tora is pretty much what many folks call the Old Testament.  To us, it’s the Tanach- Tora, Nevi’im, and K’tuvim…The Five Books of Moses, the Prophets, and the Writings.

But, to elaborate the laws and requirements of being a Jew, we have an extensive discussion.  This Oral Tora is comprised of the Mishna and the G’mara, both of which together comprise the Talmud.  Until the destruction of the first Temple (Year 3179, aka 586 BCE), Jewish life revolved about the rules of the Kohanim (Priests) and the Kings.  The Kohanim dictated the religious strictures; the kings the civilian ones.  With a few prophets thrown in to keep both groups honest.

Once the (Solomonic) Temple was destroyed, the Jewish people were banished from Israel to Babylon.  Civilian rules were dictated by the Babylonian authorities.  (You might recall that Jeremiah, the prophet, in Chapter 29 of his prophecy stated thusly:  Thus said the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, unto all the exiles whom I have exiled from Jerusalem unto Babylon: Build houses and dwell in them; and plant gardens and eat their fruit. Take wives and have sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters; and multiply, and do not diminish. And seek the peace of the city in which I caused you to be exiled, and pray unto G‑d for it; for in its peace you shall have peace.) In Bablyon, the Jews developed their own religious leadership, the rabbis- the learned people.

The Mishna (the study, the review) is the first major item of rabbinic literature.  Although these discussions were maintained orally for decades (as was done by the Native Americans and the African peoples, who maintained an oral history, with different people responsible for different sections of the history), by the 3^rd century, some 130 years after the destruction of the Second Temple,  Rav Yehuda HaNasi was worried that the collective memory might not sustain the Oral Tora.  So, he set out to codify these discussions into the  orders of the Mishna. (Originally, there were between 600 and 700 orders: Rav Hillel reorganized these into 6 orders so they’d be more easily handled.)

Of course, discussion and disputation did not end there.  Those discussions became codified as the Gemara (the completion).  There are two sets of G’marot. One is called the Jerusalem Talmud (codified by the rabbis of Tiveria [Tiberias] and Kaysarya [Caesarea]) before 400 CE, and covers most of the Mishna.  The other is the Babylonia Talmud (codified by the Ravina and Rav Ashi from the learnings of the rabbis of Sura, Pembadita, and Nehardia), which covers all of the Mishna.

Together, these two sets (the Mishna and the Gemara) are known as the Talmud.   When I was little, I studied the Talmud routinely (as well as the Written Law.)   As I grew older, I only continued those Oral Law studies with a very small portion of the Mishna called Pirke Avot (the Ethics of the Fathers).

But, about 7 years ago, Rav Shmuel Herzfeld gathered a bunch of us to study a mesechta (a section, a tractate) of Talmud that could enable us to obtain s’micha (ordination).  To be honest, receiving s’micha wasn’t my goal.  I hadn’t studied the gemara in so long, I wanted to see if I could do it and enjoy it.  (Studying the gemara is among the most difficult learning experiences in Judaism.  It makes studying for the bar to become a lawyer a picnic.)  The mesechta chosen was Pesach- theoretically the study of the laws of Passover.

But, anyone who ever read or studied the gemara knows that the discussions on those pages include the laws, side discussions, and great tales about people and life…  It’s why one of the Jewish expressions “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin” exists.  That is often the discussions that exist in the Talmud.

To my delight, many of the favorite stories I recall from my childhood all exist in this tractate.  Among my favorites describes the ‘antics’ of Honi the Circle Maker (Rav Honi Ha-M’Agel).  This tanaic rabbi from the 1rst Century BCE was considered to be among the Jewish miracle makers.  One story involved the failure of the rains to come in Israel; Honi prayed for rain (after warning the population to bring in their Passover ovens, since they were made of clay and would be ruined).  But, the rain didn’t come.  So, he drew a circle around himself and basically entreated Hashem to deliver the rain or he wouldn’t leave the circle.  And, the rains came- and came- and came.  (But not in his circle!) So much so that the folks came to him on the Temple Mount requesting him to ask the rains to attenuate.  (The Sanhedrin- the collective 70 rabbis managing Judaism- was going to ban Honi for this impudence, but they realized that was not the proper response.)  There are other great stories (one of which predates the story of Rip Van Winkle who slept for 20 years; Honi slept for 70 and had a lesson about planting trees)- I recommend you search out stories about Honi the Circle Maker.

And, a significant number of Jewish (and non-Jewish, albeit a much diminished number of them) study what is called Daf Yomi- the page of the day.  A page- the front and back of each page in the Talmud- is studied each and every day.  It’s an arduous task.  But around the world, some 350,000 folks study the same page as everyone else every day of the year.  And, by studying one page a day, the completion cycle is 7.5 years.   The most recent cycle began on 5 January 2020; my son and I decided that this was our cycle to complete.

(Ilana Kurshan, a Long Island [NY] rabbi’s daughter, who got divorced and was living alone in Jerusalem [now married with kids], began her Daf Yomi studies in the cycle that began in 2012.  She codified her experiences [and how they tracked the Daf Yomi readings] in a wonderful little book called “If all the seas were ink“.)

Well, today, the Daf Yomi cycle has us beginning to study the tractate of Pesach.  Roughly 7.5 years after I studied this tractate with Rav Shmuel.

A full cycle for me.  And, I look forward to continuing my Daf Yomi studies.