Jewish World Review March 8, 2005 / 27 Adar I, 5765

Between

By Rabbi Avi Shafran

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Tuesday is the last day of the week that the end-of-the-Sabbath Havdalah blessing may be recited if it was forgotten on Saturday night. Although I recited the blessing as usual on Saturday night, the words of Havdalah seemed to push their way into my mind this past Tuesday afternoon at Madison Square Garden, one of three New York-area venues that together hosted approximately 50,000 Jewish men, women and children who turned out locally to celebrate the "Siyum HaShas," the most recent cycle-completion of the 7 1/2 -year page-per-day Talmud study program known as Daf Yomi. What sparked the Havdalah — thought was the astonishing aptness of the blessing's words.

Worldwide, there were aproximately 120,000 participants.

Midtown Manhattan, with all its din and shameless commercialism, seemed like a different planet from the vast arena within, which was quickly filling with modestly-dressed Jews of all ages — men and boys taking their seats in one section; women and girls in another. The juxtaposition of the two worlds marvelously embodied the idea of contrast that forms the essence of Havdalah (literally, "separation").

"Blessed are You, G-d...," the blessing begins, "hamavdil bein kodesh lichol" — "Who separates between holy and mundane." "... Bein Yisroel lo'amim"

The Jewish community, even the observant one, is not particularly known for its internal harmony. We Jews can be a fractious and quarrelsome people; we care deeply, after all, about many things. But at the Siyum HaShas, Jews from different backgrounds and of different approaches to life were fused for those hours by a superceding unity of purpose. And there was no denying what obliterated their differences.

Gazing out onto the arena floor, usually a place of performers singing, or athletes running, jumping and throwing balls, I watched celebrants engrossed in their afternoon Mincha-prayers. The two images were similarly dissonant. The stands, normally the scene of raucous cheering and shouting (and worse), were packed with people honoring "players" of a very different sort from the usual - accomplished not in physical prowess and ephemeral things, but rather in spiritual strength and eternal ones.

"... Bein ohr lachoshech," Havdalah continues, "... Between light and darkness ..."

At a later point during the evening's proceedings, an announcement was made that the event was being dedicated, as it has been in the past, to the memory of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Before Kaddish was recited in their memory, one speaker noted how, seven and a half years earlier, two Holocaust survivors who had been in attendance at the previous Siyum Hashas had independently made the same observation. Each had looked around at the tens of thousands of Jews present, and thought the same unthinkable thought: At the height of the Holocaust, more Jews than this were killed in a single day.

The mere post-war survival of any degree of Jewish determination and continuity would have constituted a minor miracle. The formidable flourishing of both over recent decades is nothing short of astounding, a tribute to the wondrous Jewish ability (sadly, much challenged over history) to persevere and rebound from even the most grievous sorts of adversity. The Siyum itself, in fact, was powerful testimony to that.

A contrast whose sheer power one had to personally experience to fully appreciate was manifest later in the evening, after the completion of the Talmud and its beginning anew, after the inspiring addresses and heartfelt songs, after the memorial Kaddish and the tears — and, after the Talmud-completion itself, the dancing that suffused the arena in joy.

The program ended with Maariv, the evening prayer. And when the first verse of Shma — the Jewish credo declaring G-d's relationship to the Jewish people and His unity — was pronounced loudly in unison, the sound of tens of thousands of people proclaiming those truths with all of their hearts and all of their souls was overpowering. It seemed to shake time and space themselves.

And yet, somehow, no less powerful was the absolute stillness that marked the silent Amidah-prayer that followed shortly thereafter. The transition reminded me of how the holy, determined activity of every Friday's waning hours yield to the utter calm and peace of the Sabbath.

"...Bein yom hashvi'i li'sheshes yimei hama'aseh..." — "...between the seventh day and the six days of action."

And then there was a final contrast, too, one that underlay the very fact of the gathering.

The Jewish community, even the observant one, is not particularly known for its internal harmony. We Jews can be a fractious and quarrelsome people; we care deeply, after all, about many things.

But at the Siyum HaShas, Jews from different backgrounds and of different approaches to life were fused for those hours by a superceding unity of purpose. And there was no denying what obliterated their differences. It was precisely what forged the original Jewish unity at Mount Sinai.

It was the holiness that is the Torah.

"Blessed are You, G-d," Havdalah concludes, as it begins, "Who separates between holy and mundane."