CHOCHMAS NASHIM: VAYIKRA:
HODU LASHEM KI TOV
MISHE MISHE MISHE MISHENICHNAT ADAR
By: Suri Davis
Tomorrow is Daled Adar Bet, it would have been my father’s, ah, birthday. Oh how he would have loved the upcoming festivities in so many ways. This Tuesday, we in Daf Yomi land finish Seder Moed and Masechet Chagiga.
I am a member of the worldwide women Daf Yomi group, Hadran, headed by Rabbanit Michelle Cohen Farber, raised in the Five Towns living in Eretz Yisrael. There is a local Hadran group as well.
My grandfather, Chaim Davis, brought the Daf Yomi to the Five Towns in 1974 starting it in the White Shul, where my father was gabbai rishon.
My father was niftar a year ago. He learned many rounds of Shas. The last word he uttered to my nephew on the phone, was Daf, as in “Sruli, how’s the daf.”
I started learning daf yomi over seven years. I wondered how I would ever find time every day to learn for an hour, law practice, four kids at home. The answer is that when you love what you’re doing, you find the time.
This week we start Yevamoth, which is where I started my learning, right in the middle of the masechet. I will be completing shas in memory of my father, AH, Harav Reuvain ben Chaim. This is also a culmination of 30 years of learning torah.
When I was younger, every week my father would go to shul on Friday nights and I would learn the parshah with commentaries. At age 26, I decided to use the hour to start learning Yehoshua, one chapter at a time. Then Shoftim/Judges, one chapter a week. Fourteen years later, at age 40, I made a siyum Tanach for 90 women in the white shul. My theme was Tipah Achat/one drip at a time, after the story of Rabbi Akiva was a shepherd and he saw how drops of water over time, made an impression on a hard stone. It gave him the impetus to start learning torah at age 40, and became a great scholar. This then was to motivate all to start learning something one verse at a time with whatever time they had. To learn Torah and have it sink into their souls and psyches.
At age 40, I started Mishnayot, and completed Mishnayot in a decade. Twenty five years ago, residents of the Five Towns, Marcia and Nelson Behar suffered the untimely loss of their son Rami, Yerachmiel Meir Ben Nissim Avraham, and they turned their loss into a shiur that is 25 plus years strong. At age 50, which coincided with Rami’s 20th yahrtzeit, I recounted twenty years back, when Marcia asked me to give a shiur, I was pregnant with my eldest child, and I told her I couldn’t because I never gave one before, and she finally convinced me to give a shiur. At this siyum I turned to Marcia and thanked her for the years that she asked me to give shiurim, which forced me to sit for hours on end with books upon books to prepare, and I looked at her and said “Marcia, you saw potential in me, that I didn’t even know I had, you saved me from HKBH, because at 120 years old, if I had never given a shiur, I would have gone to HKBH and He would have said not “Suri, why weren’t you Moshe Rabbeinu, He would have said, Suri, why weren’t you Suri.” Again, my theme was tipah achat, trying to inspire higher, convincing my friends and relatives to reach a little more out of their comfort zone.
And now, I start the Masechet which I started seven years ago, and in a few weeks, I will have completed Tanach, Mishnayot and Gemara, after 30 years. I had no goal when I started out, just to fill the one hour of time my father was in shul on Friday night.
Yevamoth seems to be very daunting to many daf learners. It is a Masechet about connections. The mandate when a married man dies without children is “l’hakim shem hamet b’yisrael/to continue his name or legacy in the nation of Israel. The soul wants to continue on, which is a topic in and of itself. For those learning Yevamoth, don’t lose the forest for the trees. At the beginning of every daf and the end of every daf, ask yourself, why every connection is necessary and holy, and how does it serve the purpose of ensuring that a childless married decedent has a legacy for posterity. Keep paper and pencil at hand and enjoy the intellectual challenge.
How is this connected to this week’s Torah portion, Vayikra? In this week’s Tanya Yomi Chapter 34, Part 2, how do we build a Mishkan a holy Tabernacle within us as commanded by G-d, by learning torah. It is this Torah portion with which Jewish children start learning Torah, since it is about the building of the Tabernacle and service in the Tabernacle and getting closer to G-d. Start this week. Pick a Jewish book which interests you, and give it five minutes and let me know how I can help your learning, and invite me to your siyum.
TREMENDOUS hakarat hatov to my mother, Susan Davis, for sending me to TAG and Central, and most of all permitting me to attend Stern College for Women. Shout out to Dr. Mina Bunim Glick who sparked the flame of Biblical Exegesis at Stern College.
For those who want to join the worldwide zoom siyum there is a flyer in this newsletter for registration.
Gut Shabbos.
-Suri