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!

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 blatt daily. 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.”

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 Yeshiva of Yeshiva Maalos HaTorah, attended. 

At that siyum, Rav Aharon Leib said, “Just like a person can’t live without air, so to 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.” 

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.