Birthdays are a time for celebration, tradition, and sometimes a little humiliation, depending on where you’re from. In Nova Scotia, birthday revelers delight in ambushing the celebrant with a healthy smear of butter or lard on their nose. In Germany, single men turning 30 are conscripted into step-sweeping duty at the town hall. In South Korea, birthdays are celebrated with a steaming bowl of seaweed soup. And Ireland takes a more hands-on approach—turning the birthday person upside down and bumping them on the ground once for each year of their age, plus an extra one “for good luck.”
So, naturally, expectations were high for Rabbi Eli Stefansky’s birthday at his Tuesday morning daf yomi shiur, where one might hope to witness a buttered nose, some strategic sweeping, or even a celebratory bump on the head or two. Alas, none of these time-honored traditions made an appearance.
Instead, Rabbi Stefansky stuck to his routine, delivering his trademark opener: “Good morning rabboisai, ahh!” This time, though, he was joined by a cheerful balloon arch and a group of shiur attendees armed with confetti cannons. The room erupted into a spirited (if slightly off-key) rendition of “Yom Holedes Someach,” and that was the extent of the festivities.
No grease. No bumps. Not even a symbolic bowl of South Korea’s famous seaweed soup. Just Rabbi Stefansky, a lot of confetti, and a daf to conquer.
To his credit, Rabbi Stefansky did seem to appreciate the effort—if not the missed opportunity to embrace international birthday antics. But then again, this is a man who’s far more interested in harbotzas Torah than sweeping steps or dodging a butter ambush. With over 19,000 lomdim tuning in daily, he’s clearly doing something right, even if he’s missed out on the grease-smearing fun. Between him and Rabbi Sruly Bornstein’s shiur in Lakewood, tens of thousands of people are sitting down to learn the daf every day – many of whom might not have been learning daily at all otherwise.
Still, one can’t help but wonder what might have been. A butter-slicked balloon arch? A confetti-sweeping ceremony? The possibilities were endless.
Happy birthday, Rabbi Stefansky. Here’s hoping next year’s celebration gets a little more… creative.
🎈
(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
5 Responses
I’m glad I have a real job, instead of having to waste so much time to write this article.
For clarification-The actual celebration took place at his Hebrew shiur with his trademark “Erev Tov Rabosai!” The video shown is his recap at the English shiur the next morning.
I’m not sure who wrote this article and what the intention was supposed to be whether if it’s supposed to be negative, or a joke.
If only I had thousands to attend his exclusive for the rich shabbaton
Reb Emes, the truth is you shouldn’t be so jealous of others. Be happy with what Hashem gives you.
Which 3-year-old cry baby wrote this article? Goodness gracious.
He doesn’t have anything to do with the birthday wishes. Yes, he jokes around about it but it really started a number of years ago when they would bring him a cake or something like that.
Do you have a problem with people who are so happy to be learning and to understand what they’re learning finally when they show a bit of appreciation? I truly feel bad for you. My guess is you probably don’t learn .
Instead of running your mouth off at MDY, why don’t you commit to listening to at least a week’s worth of Shiurim? The new masechta it’s starting this week. I am sure we are going to get the traditional opening remarks prior to a masechta that Reb Eli is famous for.
From the tone of your article, it seems like you have a problem with “balabatm” giving the DAF, after all Reb Sruly is also a baal habos.
MDY claims to have in the vicinity of 25,000 people listening or watching everyday. So let’s say a lot of those numbers are duplicates for the various different groups, the English shiur, the Hebrew shiur etc., and the number is really 20,000. Let’s say DBS has around 15, 000 maybe more. There are others as well with numbers close to 8 to 10,000 people. These are mostly people who would not have been learning if not for the fact that they happen to tune in one day or hear about the magid shiur somehow.
We have more learning today than has probably been in our history going back thousands of years. Nowadays, it’s not only the best and the brightest who learn, it’s everyone else as well who is doing some sort of learning .
Don’t knock it!