T he press box is a mixed blessing. Through the glass, I could see a bustle of activity in one corner of the floor, and then similar activity in the other corner. The four-sided dais was in the middle, the bandstand off to the side.
It was clear from the two additional stages, still empty, that there were going to be other featured guests at this event, besides the rabbanim and musicians. I was curious, and in the small room nearby, from where Rabbi Yosef Chaim Golding was controlling sound, image, and video for the whole stadium, I got the answer.
The middle dais was for Torah β the roshei yeshivah, admorim, and rabbanim, their faces creased with toil β but over the next four hours, they would be bookended. First, by the children. Representatives of the Masmidei HaSiyum made their way across the floor, tens of thousands of hopeful eyes following them as they were mesayem Shishah Sidrei Mishnah. It was a small group, about 75 children chosen to flank Rav Nosson Scherman as he expertly taught them the Mishnah: 75 boys, from chassidishe chadarim to Modern Orthodox day schools, representing 40, Yiddishe kinderlach who set goals and met them in advance of the Siyum.
And then, toward the end of the program, as the sky had already grown dark, by the survivors. A group of men hunched, resilient, eyes that saw too much but were still colored by disbelief and wonder. Even as they wiped away tears and remembered β have they ever stopped remembering? Those two messages that ran through the Siyum β that our elders are our inspiration, and our children are the whole world β were the atzei chayim, bound together by the scroll.
Mah mah mah ahavti, Sorasechaβ¦. So many moments. Feet on the floor, of course, waves upon waves of dancing Jews, music rising by the boxes and bleachers and billboard into the sky, people not just shouting out the words, but smiling as they did. Ninety-thousand people, and, as someone remarked to me as we surveyed the bubbling ocean of joy, thousand problems.
