An unexpected anchor: Join me in learning daf yomi

The first time I heard that my friends were studying daf yomi, I thought it had nothing to do with me. A daily commitment to studying a page of Talmud? Impossible. I was a busy mother of six, working full-time, with barely a moment to breathe. The world of Jewish textual learning seemed distant, academic, and completely out of reach.

I had never opened a Gemara. I don’t come from a background of textual learning or of any type of consistent Jewish study. And then, one of my friends (a really influential and energetic one) decided to start a learning group in my neighborhood for the daf as the new cycle started in 2020. And she encouraged women to join her, to tune into Hadran with Rabbanit Michelle Farber and to give it a try.

“Just try for a week,” my friend said.

And so, I became one of the many thousands of people around the world who joined in the daily study of daf yomi when the new cycle began in January of 2020.

With Rabbanit Michelle’s daily guidance, gentle delivery and clear explanations, I have been immersed in ancient world of conversations, arguments, discussions and more for just about five years. At the beginning, I found myself drowning in foreign information. I didn’t really understand the structure of the daf or the players. My husband (who started the daf with me) said something that has stuck with me. “Just keep going. If you take away one tiny thing from each daf, just 30 seconds of information that sticks that day, then you’ll have achieved something.”

I put away my typical metric of what mastery and success looked like and I just listened to Rabbanit Michelle’s class each day on my way to and from work, and sometimes while cooking, exercising, or doing laundry.

It’s hard to imagine, but I’ve now listened to her while walking the Israel Trail with the family; while sitting in lockdown in the house during COVID-19; while grappling with terror and over 14 months of war; while waiting for my two fighters to exit Gaza; while traveling to America to see family and to other locations; while waiting for scary diagnoses in the hospital and for surgeries to be completed. I’ve listened while planning and celebrating two bar mitzvahs, while attending many funerals for heroes, while farming the land, and while working and living regular life.

Rabbanit Michelle is with me each and every day, and I have found that the consistency of learning has helped me to structure my day and to feel that I have an anchor for the stormy world around me. Sometimes, it is hard to connect with the text, and I just let those days wash over me; I always know that another day is coming and that there will be other chances to connect more fully.

And I certainly see that I’m not alone. Rabbanit Michelle has a Zoom class every single morning at 6:20 a.m. for Hebrew speakers who want to listen to the daf live. She gives the same class in English each day, Sunday through Thursday, on Zoom at 7:15 a.m. There are over 1,300 listeners in total each day! The classes are recorded for those, like me, who need the flexibility to listen at other times. There are also small groups throughout Israel who have registered as Hadran daf yomi communities from Raanana and Modiin to Alon Shvut, Rehovot, Efrat, and more. There are learning communities around the world, as well, including one in London, one in South Africa, two in Canada and many throughout the United States. Some of these communities meet weekly for a shiur (a lesson) such as the one in Teaneck which meets each Shabbat and in Minneapolis which meets on Sundays. Others meet for the siyum, the completion, when we finish a section. Others meet periodically for lively discussions about the daf and how it relates to local community issues and other topics.

We are about to have a siyum, celebrating the completion of Baba Batra. As we set our eyes to the next section of study, Sanhedrin, which we begin on December 19th, this is actually a great time to join us. Yes! I know it’s the middle of the 7.5 year cycle – but no one said that you have to join only at the beginning. As Rabbanit Michelle Farber explains, the next section, Sanhedrin, is a great time to begin learning the daf as it “covers a lot of different and very relevant topics and it is diverse. Some sugyot are grounded in legal discussion while others are more philosophical/moral/ethical. It’s also a bit less complicated than some masechtot. It’s engaging and relevant as many of the sugyot relate to issues still relevant today.”

It was interesting to reach out to a fellow learner, Judi Abramson Felber, to hear how she felt starting in the middle of the 7.5 year cycle during the last cycle. She explained that she started the daf as a way to gain structure in her life during a time of unemployment. Within one month of learning, she was so hooked that she only looked for jobs that would allow her to continue with (what was then) in-person learning. As she said, “Daf has been my structure and my “backbone” through the deaths of both of my parents and the severe injury of my son in a terror attack during his service in the IDF.”

Whether you are already learned or have never studied in this way before, daf yomi truly offers something for everyone. Never before in our history have so many women (and men) decided to learn daf yomi and to come together to learn, grow and explore. With the war in Israel and antisemitism on the rise around the world, this seems like a strong time to commit to integrating more learning into our lives (and acts of charity and other good deeds, of course). Just try it for a week….and you just might find yourself at the Second International Siyum HaShas for Women in Jerusalem with me in a few years (or watching it from afar). If you do – please make sure to find me to say hello!