It’s been a while since I made an unsolicited Judaism post, but with Simchat Torah last week and my third Siyum HaShas* last night, I’ve been thinking a lot about the whole deal with finishing texts in Judaism.

Texts and learning them are super important in Judaism! (Most people are probably aware of this already.) So when we finish a text it’s a big deal, but it’s also like... like you’re never really finished.

Take Simchat Torah: a holiday on which we celebrate (among other things, but primarily) finishing a cycle of reading the Torah. And you know what we do after we read the last line of the Torah? We immediately begin again from the beginning. We also have a party, because we’re happy with all the Torah we learned.

So the two important ways Judaism commemorates the completion of learning a text:

Party

Learn more text

Which brings me to Siyums, because Simchat Torah only rolls around once a year.

Previous unsolicited Judaism posts have explained about the Talmud and its 36 tractates. Traditionally, when a person finishes studying any one of those 36 tractates in its entirety, they hold a “Siyum.” The word “siyum” literally means “completion,” and a Siyum essentially consists of 2 parts:

Reading the last line of the tractate, followed by a formula text known as the Hadran*, and

Eating! This could be anything from a feast to a couple of baked goods, but notably a Siyum is SO SIGNIFICANT that even during times when observant Jews traditionally don’t eat meat (e.g., the 9 days leading up to the Sad Fast Day of Tisha B’Av), if someone holds a Siyum then they and everyone they invite get to eat meat at it anyway.

So the Hadran! The text said after completing a tractate of Talmud is several paragraphs long and a little rambly (mostly thanking God for the fact that we get to learn Talmud), but the first line of it, for which it is named, and which is repeated 3 times, is super awesome:

“Hadran Alach, _____, vehadrach alan; da’tan alach, ______, veda’tach alan; lo nitneshei minach, _____, velo titneshei minan, lo b’alma hadein, v’lo b’alma d’atei.”

Which translates to:

“WE WILL RETURN TO YOU, [title of book completed], AND YOU WILL RETURN TO US; we are thinking about you, [title of book completed], and you are thinking of us; we will not forget you, [title of book completed], and you will not forget us, not in this world, and not in the world to come.”

And I just think it’s kind of amazing the way we finish a book and immediately promise that we’ll think about it and come back to it and won’t forget it, and also that we treatthat relationship as reciprocal, declaring that the book is thinking of us, too, and will return to us.

*Siyum HaShas is the special term for when someone does a Siyum for completing the entire Talmud.

How ironic that, given our times, we can’t celebrate completing Eruvin by going out in public.

TONIGHT! Community Tefillah, Torah & Mitzvot for Yidden in France & LA SIYUM HARAMBAM B

TONIGHT! Community Tefillah, Torah & Mitzvot for Yidden in France

& LA SIYUM HARAMBAM BEVERLY HILLS HOTEL ,Jan 12 8pm 2

Please join the Jewish Community of greater Los Angeles for Prayers, Torah and Mitzvot in Unity, for our voices must be heard by G-d to bring world peace and especially to our brothers and sisters in France

We are having our annual and Tri-Annual Maimonides Celebration – this…