Multitudes Of Amud HaYomi Learners All Over The World Begin Masechta Pesachim This Week
HaRav Aharon Leib Shteinman, Dirshu Eruvin Siyu
By Chaim Gold
Did you know that if you start Masechta Pesachim this week with the Amud HaYomi, you can complete the entire masechta before the coming Pesach?! Yes, with a relatively small investment of time and effort every day, you can be koneh a masechta and know it well!
That is one of the unique facets of the Amud HaYomi. It affords a person the time to learn and complete masechtos in a way that he can actually retain a kinyan in the masechta.
Now that the Amud HaYomi is embarking on its fourth large masechta, it has become clear to lomdimthat this way of learning, one amud per day, empowers them time to look up shailos, peruse a Tosafos, which asks a perplexing question, and in general be able to not only learn the day’s amud but to even chazer the previous day’s.
The special, remarkable kuntress called Iyun HaAmud compiled by great talmidei chachamim has been extremely well received by the lomdim. The kuntress consolidates so much of the important “reyd” on the sugyain the Rishonim and Acharonim, adding so much to the geshmak. It also includes the pages of the Gemara, explanations and supplements, marei mekomos and practical applications of the halacha.
HaGaon HaRav Yitzchok Sorotzkin has encouraged lomdim to undertake the new limud saying, “HaGaon HaRav Moshe Shmuel Shapiro, zt’l, rosh yeshiva of Yeshiva Be’er Yaakov, would often bemoan the fact that avreichim do not have a wide-ranging bekius in Shas. He would advise avreichim to take time during bein hasedarim or night seder to learn an amud yomi. My father, Rav Boruch Sorotzkin, zt’l, also had an amud yomi seder every afternoon.”
HaGaon HaRav Isamar Garbuz, rosh yeshiva of Yeshiva Orchos Torah, recalled that there had once been a kollel that put an emphasis on retaining what the avreichim learned in previous years. They devoted a certain amount each day to chazering the previous masechtos that they had learned. They decided to do an entire blattdaily. Initially, it worked but as time went on, many avreichim had difficulty keeping up. They went to consult with HaGaon HaRav Aharon Leib Shteinman, zt’l, and Rav Shteinman told them that they should chazer only an amud each day, because at times a daf a day is too much. “I too,” Rav Garbuz proclaimed, “think that many will be able to benefit greatly from learning an amud each day. With perseverance they will finish and retain Shas.”
That is exactly what Dirshu has seen in the year and a half since the Amud HaYomi machzor has begun.Lomdim have had great benefit, finding it easier to retain their learning when learning at such a pace.
As the Amud HaYomi completes Masechta Eruvin and embarks on Masechta Pesachim, lomdei Dirshu recall a siyum on Eruvin held by Dirshu twelve years ago at exactly this time of the year, the period of the Three Weeks, at the Binyanei Haumah Convention Center in Yerushalayim when Klal Yisrael was at a similar crossroads. At that time, Gedolei Yisrael, led by the great senior rosh yeshiva, HaGaon HaRav Aharon Leib Shteinman, zt’l, who was nearly one hundred years old, and HaGaon HaRav Shmuel Auerbach, zt’l, rosh yeshivaof Yeshiva Maalos HaTorah, attended.
At that siyum, Rav Aharon Leib said, “Just like a person can’t live without air, so too a Jew cannot live spiritually without Torah. The world cannot exist without Torah. A Jew cannot exist without Torah. If a person chalila does not have an esrog on Sukkos, he can still be a Yid. If he doesn’t have Torah, however, the world does come to an end. Hashem makes air the easiest commodity to obtain because without it we would cease to live. Without Torah, a person would cease to live. So too, Hashem infused in the creation the ability for a person who cannot learn Torah or cannot learn a sufficient amount of Torah to connect with the Torah through supporting it. Thus, everyone can have a chelek, a part, of Torah.”
Rav Shmuel Auerbach’s remarks at that siyum as they started Pesachim could have been said to us today. He pointed out that “we are now during the Three Weeks of mourning over the destruction of the Beis HaMikdash. Now that the Beis HaMikdash has been destroyed, what do we have left?”
He answered, “Now, we only have the Torah! Ein lanu shiur rak haTorah hazos. So, how can we display to Hashem our deep desire for the geulah? The only way we can do that is by showing Him how important the Torah that which He has left for us is to us. If we show Him how much we love Torah, He will in turn see fit to entrust us once again with the Beis HaMikdosh. Perhaps,” said the rosh yeshiva, “this is the depth of the meaning of our sages’ words when they said, ‘We will only be redeemed in the merit of the Torah.’”
{Immersion in Pesachim Will Lead to a Transformative Pesach!
The Amud HaYomi is scheduled to begin Masechta Pesachim this coming Monday, 25 Tammuz/July 21. The program will complete the entire Masechta Pesachim, all one-hundred-and-twenty-one dafim, before Pesach. Anyone who has ever had the zechus to learn a masechta in its entirety before a yom tov, can attest to the fact that the entire yom tov is different after having been immersed in all aspects of that yom tov for the better part of the year preceding it. Learning the masechta before the yom tov truly transforms the yom tov into a different spiritual experience.
With the Amud HaYomi there are so many ways to learn. Lomdei Amud HaYomi can avail themselves of shiurim now being given in hundreds of different communities worldwide. There are also shiurim one can access on the phone and on various Torah platforms with some of the best, world-renowned maggidei shiurim. Many, of course, find learning with a chavrusah and the give and take that it affords to be the optimum way to learn.
The main thing to understand is that if you have not started learning the Amud HaYomi until now, there is no better time to join.
To join the Amud HaYomi and gain a kinyan in Masechta Pesachim by next Pesach contact Dirshu at [email protected] or at 1-888-5Dirshu. n
