TEVES, 5743 /DECEMBER, 1982 VOLUME XVI, NUMBER 7 E IS $2.00 THE EIGHTH COMPLETION Of THE SHQS byDAFYOMI ...you say the sweetest things. Whateversweetthingsyou'd //7};;,5-; - '\ want to try every like to say to those you love /;:"~/~r variety of Schmerling' s. the most, say it with · Our milk chocolates Swiss chocolates- . \ .._ -'--'· ar~ Cholov the finest in the -: . _ · -- ROs£;;>;:1<;< Y1srael, and world. Taste the creamy --="::__ ' --- all Schmerling's richness of Schmerling' s Choco Blanc, products maintain orthe subtle de! icacy of pareve the highest standards of Noblesse Semi-Sweet. You'll kashruth and qua Iity. IMPORTED BYT MM 10V FCXllJS INC. BROOKLYN. N Y 1122.1 THE JEWISH OBSERVER (ISSN 0021-6615) is published monthly, except July and August, by the Agudath Israel of America, 5 Beekman Street, New York, N.Y. 10038. Second class postage paid in this issue . • • at New York, N.Y. Subscription $15.00 per year; two years, $27.00; three years, $36.00; out­ The Eighth Completion of Shas by Oaf Yomi . 4 side of the United States, US The Siyum: A Celebration of the Study of Talmud, ... 6 funds only. $20.00 in U.K. and Oaf Yomi in the Lodz Ghetto, Menachem G. Israel. Single copy, $2.00. In the Vilna Ghetto, Yosef Fuchsman . 9 Printed in the U.S.A. Excerpts of the Addresses . 10 RABBI N1ssoN W0Lr1N "And You Shall Delve Into it Day and Night,'' Editor a photographic essay by Gershon Meyers •••••.•.•..... 18 Diary of a Oaf Yomi "Maggid Shiur" ............... 20 Editorial Board OR. ERNST BODENHEIMER The Last Day of a Tzaddik: Chairman Rabbi Meir Shapiro, ;i::i1::i'7 P'"l::> 1::i1, RABBI NATHAN BULMAN translated from "Meir B'Ahava" RAee1 JosEPH EuAs by Rabbi Chaim Uri Lipschitz ...................... 22 JosrrH FRIEDENSON RABBI MOSHE SHERER The Crisis Is Now, Aaron M. Brafman ...................... 26 Management Board Three Cheers For Turbulence "LeShem Shomayim," NAFTOU HIRSCH S. bat Abraham ....•...................•....•...•..•. 32 ISAAC KtRZNER NACHUM STEIN My Cousin Anatoly, a poem by Shira Shapiro ................. 37 Business Manager Rabbi Leib Gurwitz, '7''::>1 ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 38 PESACH H. KONSTAM They Don't Make "Mems" the Way They Used To, Shoshana Perr ..........•••.•••..•................... 39 THE Jrw!SH OBSERVER does not assume responsibility for the Postscript Kashrus of any product or ser­ vice advertised in its pages. The Bialystoker Memorial Book ,Chaim Shapiro ....... 40 To Keep Teachers From Disappearing .............. 43 ©Copyright 1982 DEC. 1982, VOL. XVI, NO. 7 Cover photographs: Nachman Wolfson TEVES, 5743 Photocredits for montage on page 5, beginning top left, procaadingc/ockwise: Nachman Wolfson; Mosha Friedman: N. Wolfson (Rabbi Kamenetzky with Rabbi Simcha B. Ehrsnfeld-Matersdorfer Rav)"; N. Wolfson (Rabbi Levi Y. Horowltz-Bostonsr Rsbbe, Rabbi Hansch Lsbowitz-Y. Chafetz Chaim, Rabbi Avraham Pam-Mssivta Torah Vodaath); N. Wolfson (Rabbi Aaron Schachtar-Y. Chaim Bar/in, Rabbi Sh raga Grossbard-Chinuch Atzmal, Rabbi Moshe Sherar-Agudath /sraal, Rabbi Pinchas Teitz-Elizabeth, Rabbi YaakovPerlow-Novominsksr Rebbe, Rabbi ElyaSvei-PhlladelphiaJ: Yossi Mela mad; N. Wolfson (Rabbi Moshe Horowitz-Bo.stoner Rebbe); center, N. Wolfson. • Those who addressed the Siyum are Identified elsewhere. THE EIGHTH COMPLETION Of THE SHOS byDAFYOMI This past month, thousands of Jews all over the world Hashana, 5684 with the study of Bera(hos 2 and celebrated Siyum HaSlzas-completing the entirety of the thousands of his followers did likewise, as did hundreds Babylonian Talmud. There was a time when this was a of thousands of Jews everywhere. rare achievement, only a distant dream for most Jews. Seven years later, on 15 Shevat, 1931, the entire Close to sixty years ago, however, this changed with the Talmud was completed by Dal Yomi participants for the introduction of the Oaf Yomi study program, whereby first time. Seeing that the project was not impossible, Jews in countless communities around the globe em­ more and more Jews joined the Oaf Yomi. By the time barked on a systematic study of Gemora at the rate of one the Talmud was completed for the second time in 1938, daf (two sides of a page) per day, completing 2711 dafim of it was estimated that over a million Jews were studying Shas in approximately seven and a half years. the Talmud in accordance with the Oaf Yomi. "' The idea was proposed at the Knessia Gedolah Tragically, the vast majority of these dedicated Jews (International Congress) of Agudath Israel by a young perished under the Nazis. Some persisted in their regu­ man-only 37 at the time-Rabbi Meir Shapiro, then lar pursuit of the Oaf Yomi regimen even in the Valley the Rav of the Galician town of Sunik (later, Rav of of Death. Remarkably, in 1946, a few survivors com­ Lublin). Warmly received, it succeeded in uniting Jews pleted a third cycle. The Torah giants of that time gave of all walks of life by one of the primary features that tremendous encouragement to Jews all over the world marks us Jews as a distinctive people--Torah study. to begin a fourth cycle. Since then, four more cycles Any skepticism about the broad success of the plan have been completed. But it was Oaf Yomi during these was dispelled when the Gerer Rebbe, Rabbi Avrohom years under Nazi oppression that was most memorable. Mordechai Alter ~"~!, began the New Year, Rosh We quote here from two accounts of such heroic study. 4 The Eighth Completion of the Daf Yomi A Celebration of the Study of Talmud It was an animated blatt Gemora, bound with its key forgetting limitations of lime, here lo head this undertaking Meforshim (commentaries). It was a full Shas come to life. dedicated lo the dissemination of Torah. It brought to mind Rabbi Meir Shapiro's metaphoric On Sunday afternoon, 28 Marcheshvan/November description of Torah sheb'al Peh in its broadest in­ 14, the global ingathering that is bound between the terpretation: covers of a Gemora became a tangible reality, represented When /first thought of the idea of Daf Yomi, it suggested a by Jews of German, Hungarian, Galician, Lithuanian, unifying symbol for the broad cross-section of Jewry such as Polish, Russian heritage ... of Chassidic, Misnagdish, represented here at this second Knessia Gedolah (Vienna, Yeshivish, Sefardi traditions ... and Jews whose fami­ 192 9}, fews of all walks of life, all streams, all manners and lies have lived in America or Israel too long to identify customs. The Gemora relates how Adam Harishon was with any previous "last stop" ... thousands of Jews, who created: His head was formed from the earth of Erelz Yisroel, participated in the Siyum Celebration, marking the his body from Babylon, the rest of his limbs from the other completion of the entire Shas, following the Oaf Yomi lands of the Earth. G-d refrained from molding the father of folio-a-day schedule for the eighth time since its in­ mankind from the dust of one specific area to avoid endowing ception. him with a one-sided personality. There was a special tingle of anticipation as, on high­ So has ii been in the recording of the Oral Law: its ways all over the New York Metropolitan area, cars head-the Mishna-was compiled in the Holy Land; its crowded with hatted or beyarmulked passengers rec­ body-the Talmud-was written in Babylon; the rest of its ognized fellow pilgrims bound for a common destina­ limbs-the commentaries and codes of Rashi, Rambam, the tion-part of the stream of thousands of celebrants, Tosfos, Maharsha, and Maharam-were each composed in joining thousands more that were surging forth from different lands: the Provence, Spain and Egypt, France, Hun­ subway exits, converging on the Eighth Avenue en­ gary, and Poland. trance to Madison Square Garden's Felt Forum. Here, too, with us today are representatives of various The dialogues, the debates, the over-riding harmony national groups, all united with one overriding ambition of Torah sheb'al Peh-it all seemed to be streaming into the strengthening and enhancing Torah. Students and laymen led Felt Forum, filling its multi-tiered rows of seats that by venerabe sages who are ignoring consideration of health, fanned out to a wide arch, focusing on a curtained "'""+ryy\,,,,, Part of the overflow crowd outside Madison Square Garden. 6 The Jewish Observer/December, I 982 The vast crowd in the Garden's Felt Forum. platform ... thousands more that followed, facing among the Cherubim ... ' (Berachos 49b). Replied the closed doors, yet staying on hoping for a chance that youngster: 'The more Jews present, the more one feels another seat might be found within; some latecomers the Shechina.' Today, thousands of Jews are gathered for settling begrudgingly for a place by one of the loud­ no reason other than to honor the Torah. How close we speakers stationed outside. feel to our Creator!" Meanwhile, maggidei shiur, prominent rabbonim, Chas­ sidic leaders, leading Roshei Yeshiva, and patriarchal Mincha figures took their places on the curtained platform. "I was dizzy with excitement, just sitting in the audito­ Have you ever davened Mincha together with fivt' rium," commented one veteran Oaf Yomi student." And thousand people? The energy in the Garden, a setting then the curtains parted and revealed the stage. What a usually reserved for boxing matches and rock concerts, sight! What a panorama of Jewish greatness!" was almost tangible. Ten thousand feet arched upward Similarly, one well-known Rav later remarked, "When in unison, as ten thousand mouths cried "Kadosh, kadosh, the curtains opened, the view from the dais of the vast kadosh"