Providence couple honored at Siyum Hashas celebration

After Shabbat on Dec. 2, the auditorium at Congregation Shaarei Tefilla was teeming with excitement as 160 members of the Kollel community from across New England gathered to celebrate a very special achievement by a Providence couple: After 25 years of perseverance, Anschel Strauss, aided and inspired by his wife Deborah, had completed his study of the entire Babylonian Talmud.

To provide a frame of reference for his accomplishment: The Talmud Bavli is comprised of 37 “tractates,” or books; in all, there are 5,422 pages of Aramaic text and commentaries.  

Over the years, Strauss worked with many chavrutas (study partners) and celebrated his completion (siyum) of one book of Talmud after the other. 

The crowd gathered on Dec. 2 was hushed as Strauss read and explained the very last paragraph of the 37th tractate.  Then everyone rose from their seats as he recited a special Kaddish – after which the room exploded in shouts of mazal tov, live music and dancing.

During dinner, Strauss spoke emotionally about his parents and their influence on him.  He recounted how his study of Talmud began in memory of his father. And he gave credit to his wife, Deborah, saying she was instrumental in bringing them to this point in their religious life. 

The event was the culmination of an inspiring weekend at Shaarei Tefilla, in Providence, which hosted world-renowned Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein as its scholar-in-residence.  On Saturday, Rabbi Rubinstein honored Anschel and Deborah Strauss and helped everyone in attendance recognize the message of the evening:  Do not let limitations prevent you from working toward your dream.  Solid change does not happen all at once.  Steady effort and slow, imperceptible change yields great results.

Comparisons were made between Strauss and Rabbi Akiva, who was born in Israel around the year 50 and, inspired by his wife, began religious study at the age of 40.  Rabbi Akiva became the greatest rabbi of his time and is one of the most important influences on Judaism as we know it today.  Rabbi Akiva publicly declared to his students that credit for his Torah scholarship belonged to his wife, Rachel.

Although a Siyum Hashas celebration, which marks one’s study of the entire Talmud Bavli, is the event of a lifetime, Strauss pointed out that Torah study is a lifelong obligation.  Just as each year on Simchat Torah we complete the annual cycle of reading the Five Books of Moses and conclude the celebration by reading the first chapter of Genesis, so too the text of the Siyum celebration includes the following: “May it be Your will that just as You helped me to complete this course of study, You will help me to begin the study of other texts and to complete them … .”   

RUCHAMA SZENDRO lives in Providence.