Siyum Brochoth 5780

Today I have the privilege of making a siyum on the first mesechta of shas, on this 14th cycle of daf yomi. 

It is also parshath Zachor, the day assigned to remember the eternal struggle against antisemitism . 

The coincidence is not lost on me.  

All Jews remember the history of attempts at the destruction of our people.  We see them as emanations of the original attempt by Amalek.  We see it in the Purim we will celebrate this week. 

I certainly see it in the Holocaust that my parents and grandparents experienced so personally.  I am part of a special club, the offspring of survivors and direct victims of the modern Amalek and Hamen. 

It is difficult to put events in living memory into a religious context.  The methodology doesn't work.  Long historical perspective, with its overlay of  contextual re-interpretation is needed before events find their proper place in a system of belief. 

But I can appreciate some of the miraculous nature in my making this siyum;  in, once again, completing this tractate.  I am alive as an offshoot of the remnant that remained after the mechanized attempt at  the total destruction of our people. The torah and the tradition and the talmud can still live through me.  They are not rejected.  It is my hope that they will live on for many more generations through my progeny and colleagues.