Whether or not we learn daf yomi, we're all climbers, struggling one day at a time to achieve our goals

When Gil Stein joined Rabbi Efrem Goldberg’s two-day trip to New York last winter to meet with prominent rabbanim, he expected to come away inspired. After all, this was the second time he was joining the rabbi of the Boca Raton Synagogue on this trip for the men of the shul. But he couldn’t have anticipated just how life-changing it would be.

Stein, a roofing contractor and father of three who’s been living in Boca for 13 years, remembers how he felt listening to Rav Avraham Schorr, Rav of Congregation Nezer Gedalyahu of Brooklyn, as he spoke about strengthening their Torah study – and then gave them practical instructions for doing so.

”If you want the learning you do to really make an impact,” Rav Schorr told the men, “then take one daf and review it 101 times, just like Chazal tell us.’”

The men from Boca took the advice to heart. That very evening, as they waited to catch their flight home, one of the men downloaded the first daf of Brachos onto his phone and said, “Let’s do this.”

When they got back home, one of the men printed and laminated the daf, and they formed a WhatsApp group to encourage each other. 101 days later, which was Lag Baomer, a sizeable group of those men, including Stein, made a “siyum” on this daf, which they had indeed reviewed 101 times.

What’s it like to review the same daf day after day? Does it get tedious? Is there a temptation to skip a day, to think, Today is so busy, and besides, I know this already?

“Yes, there were some days that were harder than others,” says Moshe Winograd, a psychologist in private practice who also teaches in a local girls’ high school. “101 sounds like a very big number when you start out. But I told myself, Chazal knew better than me. And by the time I’d done it 30, 40 times, it took just 15 minutes a day, so it wasn’t a major time investment.”

Winograd describes how transformative this experience was. “I became completely immersed in the first blatt of Brachos. On any given day, I’d come across something connected to the daf – I felt like I was really living it.”

As an example, he found that learning the daf gave him a greater appreciation of time. “The first daf of Brachos deals with the time of Krias Shema, of when the Kohanim could eat the Terumah. Every minute makes a difference, and being so involved in this daf made me think about how I spend my own time each day.”

Stein says that he dealt with flagging motivation by using a simple motivational chart.

“I marked off in the front of my Gemara each day that I did the chazarah. Even on days when it was hard to find the time, that chart made me realize that I didn’t want to miss a day.”

Like Winograd, he says that learning the same daf so many days in a row makes it come alive. “Every day I’d be noticing something new, asking different questions. It’s a very different way of learning a daf Gemara than anything I’d done before.”

The climax for both men was their Lag Baomer siyum.  As they sat around the room, one man in the group started reciting part of the daf – and another participant completed his sentence. They all realized that they were able to say the daf by heart.

“That moment, when we realized how much we knew, was really surreal,” says Stein.

Since that experience, both Stein and Winograd have chosen to continue their learning in different ways. Winograd has gone on to the first daf of Shabbos, and then the first daf of Eiruvin, both of which he completed 101 times. Stein, on the other hand, decided to continue in Brachos, learning each subsequent daf 30 times.

For both of them, their Chazarah experience has transformed the way they approach learning a daf Gemara.

“Learning the same daf over and over, day in and day out, has made that Gemara feel like a friend,” Winograd says.

The impact was felt by the other participants as well. From the group of men who made it through that first chazarah goal, some have gone on to learn the next daf in Brachos 101 times and others have chosen to do a different learning with the same rigorous review – but all of them felt the incomparable accomplishment of having acquired a piece of Torah for themselves.

(Originally featured in 'One Day Closer', Special Supplement, Chanuka/Siyum HaShas 5780)