1.
Two features distinguish the Daf Yomi: The daily learning of the Blatt Gemara, resulting in the completion of the whole of Shas in a period of over seven years, and the simultaneous learning of the same Blatt by Jews all over the world.
When Rabbi Meir Schapira proposed the Daf Yomi at the first Kenesia Gedola of the Agudath Israel in Vienna in 1923 he stressed the second feature as a mighty stimulus to the study of the Torah, as Jews all over the world would be united by the study in common of the same subject matter.
On the occasion of the fifth Siyum of Shas by the learners of the Daf Yomi it is perhaps appropriate to recall, that two years before the institution of the Daf Yomi, a suggestion was made to introduce the study of the same subject matter Jews all over and to strengthen thereby the study of the Torah. In Tamuz 5681 (1921) Rabbi Shmuel Aron Pardes, editor of the rabbinical journal Hapardes, then published in Poland, called for the establishment of a “Shiur Iyuni Olami”. He proposed that Bnei Torah all over the world, should study at the same time the same Sugyos. The simultaneous study and discussion of the same subject would in his opinion, bring about the deepening and strengthening of the Limud Hatorah. He also announced that Chiddushim on the Sugyos learnt would be published in his journal.
His proposal was supported by many prominent rabbis, among them the Rabbi of Ger, who later was one of the great and strong supporters of the Daf Yomi. In one of the following issues of Hapardes, Rabbi Pardes remarked that he had been told by a great Talmid Chacham, that in the days of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, a suggestion similar to his, was made to the Lomdim of Kovno and Vilna.
Advised by prominent rabbis that the first Sugyos to be studied should be the thirty nine Av Melachoth of Shabbath. Rabbi Pardes announced in the issue of Marcheshvan 5682 that the Melacha of Hotzaah would be the subject of the first Shiur Iyuni Olami. In the same issue references to certain passages in the Talmud and Mefarshim, on which the Lomdim were to concentrate, were given. Though in the following issues of Hapardes, chiddushim on the first Shiur wre published, the Shiur Iyuni Olami does not seem to have succeeded in attracting larger circles and eventually ceased to exist.
Rabbi Meir Schapira strove to renew in our days the great Torah center of Lublin. By establishing the Yeshivas Chachmei Lublin he wanted to resurrect the times when Rabbi Sholom Shachne, Rabbi Shlomo Luria, the Maharam of Lublin and the Maharsha served as Roshei Yeshiva in that city. It is interesting to note that the city of Lublin of those times was associated with an attempt to introduce the simultaneous study of the same tractates of the Talmud in different localities.
In 5319 (1559) the printing of an edition of Shas was begun in Lublin. To further the study of the Torah and the success of the printing enterprise, the rabbis of that epoch decreed that all Yeshivas should learn the same tractates and do so in the order of their publication in the Lublin edition.
On the title pages of several tractates of the Lublin edition—only a few copies of which are still extant—the following may be read: “The Geonim and the Rosh Yeshivas of three countries, Poland, Russia and Lithuania, have resolved, ordered and decreed, that in all Yeshivas of those three countries the tractates of the Talmud should be learned in the order of their publication in this edition for the purpose of the spreading of Torah in Israel and of supporting the printers in their enterprise.”
May we add that several tractates of this Lublin edition were based on a text of the Talmud corrected by Rabbi Sholom Shachne. Rabbi Sholom Shachne of Lublin, pupil of Rabbi Yaakov Pollack and teacher of Rabbi Moshe Isserles and of most of the other great rabbis of Poland of that period, was the ideal of Rabbi Meir Schapira.
Rabbi Meir Schapira used to mention him often in his talks and used to visit, in the company of his pupils, Rabbi Sholom Shachne’s grave on the latter’s Yahrzeit.
Thus Rabbi Meir Schapira, founder of the Daf Yomi, of the Yeshivas Chachmei Lublin, and rabbi of that city, was in more than one sense the successor of Rabbi Sholom Shachne and the other great rabbis of Lublin of that period.
By Tovia Preschel
Jewish Press
September 2, 1960