The music had stopped… but the dancing? The dancing continued! You had to see it to believe it. It was past midnight at the expansive Ateres Golda Hall in Boro Park. More than a thousand men and hundreds of women attended Dirshu’s triple siyum on the Amud HaYomi Masechta Shabbos, Daf HaYomi Masechta Bava Basra and Seder Zeraim in Talmud Yerushalmi. 

The siyum was a beautiful mosaic of achdus as Yidden from Boro Park, Williamsburg, Flatbush and even as far as Lakewood came to celebrate Torah accomplishments. At a Dirshu event, outer clothing is just superficial. It makes no difference if you wear a shtreimel, a spodek, a hat with the brim down or up. Dirshu is all one big mishpacha unified by the ultimate unifier, Torah!

The participants, merited to hear powerful words of Torah and chizuk from HaGaon HaRav Shmuel Yehuda Zilber, shlita, Rav of Khal Emunas Yisroel, HaGaon HaRav Zev Smith, shlita, maggid shiur for Dirshu and Irgun Shiurei Torah, the leading posek, HaGaon HaRav Yechiel Michel Steinmetz, shlita, Skverer dayan of Boro Park who made all three siyumim and Rav Dovid Hofstedter, shlita, Nasi of Dirshu. 

Rav Smith pointed out what the Gemara tells us about Abaye, who made a Yom Tov every time a talmid finished a masechta. “Rabbosai! Imagine what Abaye would say tonight if he was here! This isn’t one siyum, it is thousands of people making siyumim – Masechta Shabbos, Bava Basra, Seder Zeraim. What a colossal Yom Tov we are celebrating! Ashreinu!”

Rav Smith also hailed the integral role that Dirshu women play in ensuring that their husbands can spend so much time learning, reviewing and taking tests. He related a fascinating story about a young couple from pre-War Germany who left the comfort of their home in Germany so that the husband could come to Ponovezh and learn in the Yeshiva there. 

One day the Ponovezher Rav noticed the young wife walking outside near the beis medrash. He approached her and asked, “Can I help you with anything?” 

She answered that everything was fine, but she was just taking a walk with her husband. 

The Rav said, “If he is late, I would be happy to go in and call him for you.” 

The young woman answered, “No, I am not waiting for him to come out, I am taking a walk with his kol Torah. I like to walk outside the window of the beis medrash so that I can hear his sweet and delicious kol Torah!” 

The Rav was so taken with emotion by her answer and her love of Torah that he told her, “I am giving you a bracha and I am certain that your husband will one day become a great Rosh Yeshiva and when that time comes, I want him to name the yeshiva, ‘Yeshiva Kol Torah,’ in the zechus of his wife who so appreciated the kol Torah!”

“That young man was Rav Yechiel Michel Schlessinger who eventually moved to Eretz Yisrael where he established the famed Yeshiva Kol Torah! It is this kind of ahavas haTorah that is embodied by the Neshei Dirshu. All of the siyumim here and simcha is also a credit to them,” Rav Smith exclaimed passionately.