Siyum: the finishing party!

Today was back to the same old, same old. I awoke at 11:30, after going to sleep at 3:00; Rav Bigman called Ilan around 2:45 to tell us he was too tired to see any more people in the jeep, so we took a rain check and went to sleep (interesting note: ever since Rav Gilad made that interesting rain statement, it hasn't rained).

Leor, however, was up, and he went to Rav Shmuel's "Approach to Learning" shiur before taking a bus back to Mevaseret. Josh tried, and tried unsuccessfully, to get Leor to transfer to Ma'aleh Gilboa. Leor says he's happy there, and I think he should stay there, and that he should ignore Josh's misplaced attempts and prosletysing.

I went to an interesting shiur today with Rav Yitzchak about the parsha, about Jacob and his two main wives, Rachel and Leah. The theme was how marriage created two dynamic relationships that often caused problems for each other: the husband-wife relationship, and the father-mother [parental] relationship. In biblical times, men would marry two wives: one to raise the children ("au pair"), and one whom he loved. For examples, see Abraham and Sarah/Hagar, and Elkanah and Hannah/Penina. In Jacob's case, it appears that he marries Rachel for love, and from Leah he begets most of his children. However, the Torah seems to criticize this system of two wives, and seems to favor that one wife fulfilling both roles, even with a struggle, is better than a division of roles. The Torah opinion eventually comes to fruition with the Decree of Rabbeinu Gershom (which decreed polygamy in Judaism illegal) in, I believe, the medieval period. In a fitting twist, history plays out that Rachel and Leah eventually switch roles: Leah, not Rachel, is buried with Jacob in the Cave of Machpellah, while "Rachel is crying for her children," according to Jeremiah, as they pass her tomb in Bethlehem on the way to Babylon and exile. I liked that twist.

Anyway, today we performed a siyum! For those of you who are unaware of the term siyum, a siyum is the completion of a certain area of study. The siyum is culminated by finishing the final bit of the area of study, followed by refreshments. Here is what I finished, er, studying:

Yes, the fourth season of Seinfeld, which was too funny to recap. There were some hilarious lines, moments, and episodes, but there were so many that I cannot remember all of my favorites. In my study of comedy, this ranks up there.

So, we had a siyum. In attendance were ALEPH DELTA MAO members me, Ilan, and Josh; Honorary Member Micah, just back from a stay in the US; Leor, who hadn't yet returned to Mevaseret; and new Honorary Member David Mayer-Deutsch. We watched the final episode (actually a double-episode, but that's not important) and ate bisquits and other pastries. However, Ilan would not let us watch in a normal fashion; no, we each had to wear a piece of his clown suit, for reasons unclear to me or any sane person, to mark the occasion. See if you can guess who is missing from the picture, and why. (I'll give you a hint: it has to do with the fact that cameras don't shoot by themselves. Well, unless they're on autoshoot. But this picture wasn't. And as to the first part, notice that someone very important is missing from my bed. I will award zero bonus points for answering those two questions, especially after the hints.)

I'll close with a variation on the prayer recited after the completion of a section of gmara:
"The nations run after nothing, but we, the Jews at Ma'aleh Gilboa, run after Seinfeld, the show about nothing (not that there's anything wrong with that)."