March 1, 2005 Jews at locations throughout the world, hooked-up to the events at Madison Square Garden in New York City. This was a celebration marking the completion of the Talmud…one page a day. It culminated a seven and a half year cycle of the reading of 2,711 pages of that sacred text. It was known around the Jewish world as Siyum Hashas of the Daf Yomi.

Disney Concert Hall co-hosted the largest Torah celebration in modern history. On March 1, 2005 three thousand Jews celebrate the Daf Hayomi Siyum (culmination of the study of the entire Talmud). Men clad in traditional knee-length coats and black hats, business suits and yarmulkes, joined their wives and children at the ultra-contemporary downtown Los Angeles concert hall.

The Eleventh Siyum Hashas of Daf Yomi spanned the globe with sixty-six cities from Oakland to Hong Kong, Sydney to Johannesburg—120,000 people linked to a live hook-up via satellite.

Rabbis from New York City, Toronto, and Chicago spoke of commitment, dedication, and Torah from podiums thousands of miles apart, connected with a simulcast link. Councilman Jack Weiss and Mayoral Candidate Bob Hertzberg were two Los Angeles dignitaries present at the celebration to congratulate their fellow Jews.

Everyone felt the presence of the man who inspired the Daf Hayomi, Rabbi Meir Shapiro, of Lublin, Poland, pictured inside the program book handed at the door. In 1923, Shapiro knew of commitment and dedication. He also recognized Torah was the heart of Judaism, and the Talmud its central nervous system. He formed a group, Agudath Israel, with the focus of increasing Torah commitment among Jews worldwide. The organization decided everyone would learn the same page (daf) of the Talmud every day (hayomi). To “learn” the entire Talmud, a sixty-three-volume book with 2,711 pages, would take 7 1/2-years.

Joseph Bock, a Brentwood electronic engineer, was raised in an ultra-Orthodox home. His father and grandparents emigrated from Poland before the Holocaust. When they moved to the lower East Side of New York they brought with them the inspiration they received from their rebbe in Poland. Bock’s father studied Talmud everyday. “Even though I am not fully observant now, I am super excited about the Siyum. I wish my father was alive to see this.” Bock’s voice trembled.

Rabbi Yitzak Adlerstein, Chair of Jewish Law and Ethics at Loyola Law School said, “The Siyum experience is awesome. Thousands of Jews put aside their differences and are momentarily in contact with what unites them—Torah.” Not all celebrants are rabbis and yeshiva students. “They are ordinary guys—businessmen, college students, and retirees. They dedicate their time to completion of ‘the Daf’.”

There are three options when studying the daf yomi—study with a partner, study with a group, or study alone. Adlerstein said, “Studying (the Talmud) one page a day is like passing the Walt Disney Concert Hall hearing three bars of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. You hear something beautiful, but you realize there’s a lot more to hear. That’s what it’s like reading a page a day.”

Antony Gordon, Director/Stage Manager for the celebration, estimates slightly less than 10% of the people attending the event actually completed the Daf Yomi study program.

Shana K. Kramer, director of Creative Learning Pavilion says, “My contribution is to get my husband to his daf on time.” For twenty-one years she pushed her husband out the door to get to his study group. She has the responsibility of purchasing the tickets, which she bought a year in advance.

Rabbi Shelaim Furst, North Hollywood, doesn’t learn the daf hayomi. “It’s too much to retain one daf a day.” Instead, he studies Gemara and teaches it to his Yeshiva Toras Emes students.

Shimshon Tabrikian, a software engineer, studies Torah daily to “know the laws of Hashem.” He has never attended a Daf Hayomi Siyum. He was excited to see so many observant Jews loyal to Jewish tradition. Weeks prior to the event, he was thrilled by the prospect of davening mincha (afternoon service) with thousands of Jews at the Disney Concert Hall.

There are thousands who do commit their time to study a page a day. Yerachmiel Loebel, a school liaison at Vista del Mar, was a child of the Holocaust. With tears in his eyes he said, “I spent the last two years of World War II at the Yeshiva of Montreux, Switzerland with fifty other students.” It was the only yeshiva left in Europe. He felt a strong responsibility to transmit Torah and Talmud to what remained of world Jewry. “In 1943 only a handful of us studied Torah.” He looked around the clean bright modern music hall and said, “All these people learning Torah. It’s a miracle.”

Adlerstein said, “If only one person studies Torah in a family, it affects the entire family.”

Gordon, who grew up in South Africa from a traditional orthodox family, agrees. “Children learn from what they see. When they see the study of Torah as a priority, it serves as the best lesson of what their main concerns should be.”

“When you learn Torah it gives you the right perspective of life and provides guidelines,” Tabrikian said. It helps elevate the entire family guiding them through life’s ups and downs. He provides a concrete example. “Once I learned the Talmud Baba Metzia which says that a man shall respect his wife more than himself. From that time on I’ve been more careful in the way I behave.”

Kramer added, “Torah study changes a person. It brings godliness and Judaism front and center to our lives.”

That holiness was evident in the speeches heard from Los Angeles, New York, Toronto, and Chicago. Rabbi Yaakov Perlow, head of Agudath Israel of America, spoke from Madison Square Garden. He made the plea for everyone to add an “eighth hour” to his weekly daf hayomi study sessions.

Rabbi Chaim Stein, head of Telz Yeshiva in Cleveland spoke the last daf in Yiddish. His long white beard shook, his eyes pooled with tears as he uttered the final words of the Talmud that was a seven and a half year journey. As he spoke, the video screen flashed live pictures of yeshiva students in Lublin, Poland. This is the same yeshiva founded by Rabbi Meir Shapiro, the originator of the daf hayomi. People in the auditorium were visibly moved.

Abish Brodt sang from New York as Jews in cities around the world danced. There wasn’t much room in the aisles of the Disney Concert Hall, but men and boys jumped to their feet anyway. Hand to shoulder they danced in line through the winding aisles as women, stage left, clapped to the staccato beat.

Bock looked up at the screen hanging above the stage. “There’s my cousin!” Rabbi Yankey Luban danced in the wider aisles at the Continental Airlines Arena in New Jersey. The connection was palpable.

Rabbi Osher Weiss, head of a yeshiva in Jerusalem, spoke to the world from the podium in Los Angeles. He explained the reason for the joy. “Finishing but one volume of Talmud is by itself an occasion for celebration. It is so much more finishing the whole Talmud.”

With index finger pointing to the wooden ceiling at the Disney Center, Weiss continued. “Tonight we stand united with the thousands of our brethren and hundreds of congregations spanning six continents. The love of Torah is the secret of the Jewish community. Torah is our life. Torah is our sustenance. Torah should not be taken for granted. We have to toil at it. This is why one has to appreciate the gift of daf hayomi that Meir Shapiro gave us.”

And it showed from the observations of Disney Concert Hall technicians and staff. Their comments to the stage director were unanimous. “It was a pleasure to deal with such well behaved people,” Gordon reported. “They were amazed at the true happiness and positive emotions they witnessed people experiencing without liquor or special effects.”

Adlerstein concluded, “This Siyum is an honor to the Torah and to those who studied and completed the world’s longest marathon.”

But it’s more than that. The Jewish people have survived exiles, pogroms, and genocide. Mayoral Candidate Hertzberg summed it up perfectly. “On the heels of the 60th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz, the saddest and most destructive period in Jewish history, it is most fitting hundreds of thousands of Jews worldwide, of all backgrounds and levels of observance, celebrated together the completion of the Talmud.”

The Siyum Daf Yomi is an event that leaves all attending inspired, committed and proud of Judaism’s time-tested heritage. And as the Jewish people look ahead into the Twenty-first Century, they feel a sense of gratitude to nations like the United States and Canada that have permitted and supported the growth of Jewish institutions.