Mastery over the key points of all 1,000 blatt — comprising over ten masechtas

Happening in… Passaic

Last week, Daf Yomi hit the 1,000-blatt mark, and while participants will have to wait until the end of the completion of Maseches Nedarim to celebrate an official siyum, for the Zichru organization, the 1,000-blatt mark was a celebration unto itself. The brainchild of longtime Daf Yomi maggid shiur Barry Lebovits and memory expert Rabbi Avraham Goldhar, Zichru encourages Daf Yomi participants to write down three points per daf, and then incorporate numerous memory resources to retain them.

The program was launched in earnest at the beginning of the current Daf Yomi cycle in 2020, and when learners hit the 1,000-blatt mark this past week, Zichru marked the occasion by showcasing some veteran members being publicly spot tested at a gala event in Passaic, New Jersey.

The crowd watched in amazement as respected rabbanim tested the participants, who displayed mastery over the key points of all 1,000 blatt — comprising over ten masechtas.

Rav Yeruchem Olshin, the Lakewood rosh yeshivah, spoke emotionally about the level of ahavas haTorah exhibited, and Rabbi Ephraim Eliyahu Shapiro, the mara d’asra of Shaaray Tefilah in North Miami Beach, remarked that “few times has there been a ma’amad like this in the history of our Torah growth.”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 943)