Dramatic End to a Daunting Daily Ritual

Every morning for nearly 7 1/2 years, before heading to his job at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, before logging onto his computer and assembling commands for the spaceship Cassini, Fred Rosenblatt has opened the Talmud and steeped himself in the lessons of the ancients.

He has followed along as Rabbi Avrohom Stulberger, principal of Valley Torah High School, has intoned the words of Rashi and the Tosafot. He has fought off sleep at 6:45 a.m. to discuss such issues as when husbands and wives may have sex and why Jews must refrain from eating meat and dairy products together.

With his shirt rumpled and reference books strewn across a table, he has gathered with other laymen on workdays and weekends alike to engage in “Daf Yomi”--literally, the study of a page a day.

Today, Rosenblatt’s spiritual journey--all 2,711 days of it--comes to a close as he and thousands of other Orthodox Jews across the globe complete the latest cycle of their reading of the Talmud, the classic compendium of Jewish laws and commentaries that dates back 1,500 years.

An anticipated 100,000 celebrants, including Hasidim in black frocks and others in knitted yarmulkes, will herald the feat at packed ceremonies from the Hollywood Palladium to the Yad Eliyahu Stadium in Tel Aviv, an unprecedented number that Orthodox leaders say shows growing interest in their movement.

Hooked up by satellite, they will recite the Talmud’s last words. And then they will begin all over again.

For many, the “Siyum Ha-Shas”--or Completion of the Talmud--harbors added significance this year because it falls just three days before the start of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year that begins the 10-day High Holy Days, the holiest season of the year. And although some view the timing as a fluke of the calendar, the convergence nonetheless is inspiring many Talmudic students as they prepare for another odyssey of nearly 7 1/2 years.

“In the grand scheme of things, nothing is random,” said Rosenblatt, 48, a systems analyst at JPL in Pasadena, who studies the Talmud at Emek Hebrew Academy in North Hollywood. “We need all the inspiration we can get in this world.”

It was precisely that sentiment, in the anti-Semitic world of prewar Eastern Europe, that prompted Rabbi Meir Shapiro of Lublin, Poland, to propose a daily regimen of Talmud study before an international gathering of Jewish leaders in Vienna in 1923.

Like so much of the wisdom in the Talmud, his notion was prophetic--to keep Talmud study, and in turn Jewish tradition, alive in the modern era. Indeed, Daf Yomi survived the Holocaust and is now completing its 10th cycle.

Orthodox leaders credit Daf Yomi with opening the serpentine world of the Talmud to an increasingly broad audience and with fostering a new connection to Judaism for those seeking greater spirituality.

“The commitment to Torah study is a testimony that 800 years of European Jewry has not been erased and has been transplanted,” said Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein, director of the Jewish Studies Institute at Yeshiva of Los Angeles. “To have thousands of Jews reaffirming their love of the Book is quite an accomplishment.”

A guidebook to daily living for the faithful, the Talmud consists of interpretations of the Torah, the Jewish Bible, and dictates virtually every aspect of Jewish life--from the Sabbath to business matters, from marriage to divorce.

Written largely in Aramaic, a Semitic language that uses Hebrew characters, it includes Judaism’s early oral tradition that was handed down from Mt. Sinai as well as later commentaries from Rabbinic sages such as Rashi, who lived in 11th century France, and the Tosafot, a group of commentators who lived in France and Germany from the 11th to the 13th centuries.

At the end of the 20th century, in its last round of Daf Yomi before the new millennium, the Talmud’s 63 tractates have been studied by more than 10,000 Jewish men worldwide, according to organizers, double the number that completed the arduous endeavor seven years ago and more than any in the nine previous cycles.

But whether the ranks of full-time adherents to Orthodox Judaism are similarly growing, as Orthodox leaders contend, is a matter of dispute being argued in true Talmudic fashion.

Although Orthodox Jews account for just 6% to 10% of the United States’ 5.9 million Jews, their birthrate--an average 4.2 children per family--is nearly three times higher than those of their Reform and Conservative counterparts, Orthodox leaders report. They also say a steady stream of Jews returning to observant practices is adding to their numbers.

“Just look at neighborhoods where there is Orthodox growth, and you see a demand for housing. It’s because people are having more kids,” Adlerstein said. “We’re mushrooming.”

Mainstream Jewish organizations--including the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles--cite their own studies that show the Orthodox community on the wane. One random-sample survey conducted by the federation this year found that 4.3% of Los Angeles’ 247,668 Jewish households identified themselves as Orthodox, compared to 5% in 1979. Los Angeles has an estimated 519,000 Jews, the second largest number in the United States after New York City.

“I haven’t seen any evidence of major growth,” said Pini Herman, a demographer for the federation. Orthodox Jews “live in more compact areas because they have to walk to synagogue. That’s not an indicator of population growth, it’s an indicator of population density.”

Undisputed, however, is that today’s Daf Yomi celebrations will draw larger crowds than ever worldwide.

In New York, the hub of the country’s Orthodox population, Madison Square Garden has sold out its 25,000 seats. Another 18,000 celebrants will spill over to the Nassau Coliseum on Long Island. In Los Angeles, 1,500 people are expected at the Hollywood Palladium.

Men and women alike are expected to attend the various ceremonies, even though Orthodox women do not engage in Daf Yomi because they have not traditionally studied the Talmud. Some, however, now read the text.

Agudath Israel of America, a 75-year-old Orthodox organization that sponsors religious and educational programs, is coordinating the Daf Yomi celebrations. It has hired a New York public relations firm to help promote the events and to handle an expected crush of reporters at Madison Square Garden.

“This is a major project that needed a whole staff,” said Rabbi Avi Shafran, normally Agudath’s one-man public affairs operation. “We didn’t have one, so we deputized one from a well-respected PR firm.”

That sort of pragmatism infuses the Talmud and helps draw many students seeking solutions to real-life dilemmas.

To aid Americans, some editions of the oversized books have English translations. Lessons are delivered in a rapid-fire series of questions and answers, a mix of English and Hebrew that takes about an hour to unfold. Those who can’t make it in person can get the information through the Internet, CD-ROM programs, audiotapes and even over the phone by calling “Dial-a-Daf.”

During one recent session at Young Israel of Century City, a Pico Boulevard synagogue, eight men in black yarmulkes studied a page of Tractate Niddah, the final section of the Talmud and the one that is devoted to family purity.

The discussion centered on the prohibition against intimate contact between husband and wife when the woman is menstruating. Quoting the text, Rabbi Yehoshua Hager from Yeshiva of Los Angeles said that couples must abstain from sex during the woman’s five-day menstrual period and the following seven days. Then, after she immerses herself in a ritual bath, or mikvah, the couple can resume sexual relations. But the slightest show of blood during the last seven days can be cited as a reason to start the seven-day interval again.

Some outsiders may view the edict as charming folklore, but Hager and his students drew an important insight.

“You want to look at the philosophical meaning--to keep romance in the relationship,” said Mark Hess, a Century City lawyer. “If you know you’re restricted, that you have to wait 12 days, you are almost like newlyweds. Throughout the Talmud, there are pearls of wisdom . . . that give you insight into human behavior.” Hess and others say daily Talmud study has provided a personal satisfaction they haven’t found in even the most successful careers.

To Mike Rafi, 42, the Sabbath once was indistinguishable from the other days of the week. He had been raised with little religious education. Then, in his early 30s, searching for answers to fill a nagging spiritual void, he attended a “Shabbaton” gathering sponsored by an Orthodox group.

Rafi would eventually embrace Orthodox observances--keeping kosher, refraining from work on the Sabbath. And at the urging of Hager, he began attending Daf Yomi classes at Young Israel about 18 months ago. “I was highly educated and was making good money, but I felt empty inside,” recalled Rafi, an engineer who now sells wholesale fabrics. “There’s more to life than money, power and work.”

To Rafi and others, Daf Yomi has become as routine as getting dressed, eating breakfast and praying three times a day in accordance with Jewish law.

Students such as Ernest Agatstein have become so immersed in Daf Yomi that they not only are repeating the 7 1/2-year process but have become teachers of it.

Agatstein, 41, a yeshiva high school graduate and member of Young Israel of Hancock Park, was one of a handful of Los Angeles Jews to finish the Talmud in the 1990 cycle. Interest at his shul, or synagogue, has grown so much that it now offers two classes, one taught by the rabbi and one by Agatstein.

“I’ve tried to fashion myself into a Talmudic scholar as best I can,” said Agatstein, a clinical professor of urology at UCLA and chief of urology at Centinela Hospital in Inglewood.

Today, Agatstein and eight other men from his shul are in New York for the Madison Square Garden gala. The adults and five children, including Agatstein’s 15-year-old son, reserved a sky box to get a bird’s-eye view of the activities.

As in celebrations across the country, Agatstein and the others will chant the Hadren prayer of thanks for having reached the momentous occasion.

They will honor those who completed every page of the Talmud.

They will recite the Kaddish prayer for those who perished in the Holocaust.

They will speak about spiritual renewal and the imminent Jewish New Year.

They will read the last lines of Niddah: “Anyone who studies Jewish law each day is assured entry into the World to Come.”

And then they will open the holy book and begin all over again.

* DAYS OF AWE: Time of repentance, reflection for Jews begins this week. B2