Asiyum (Hebrew:סיום) ("completion"), inJudaism, occasionally spelled siyyum, is the completion of any established unit ofTorah study. The most common units are a single volume of theTalmud, or ofMishnah, but there are other units of learning that may lead to a siyum.
The typical structure of a siyum event includes a conclusion of the study, reading of theHadran text,kaddish, and a celebratory meal.
The custom to make asiyum is first mentioned in the Talmud: "Abaye said: grant me my reward, for when I see a young Torah scholar who has completed a tractate, I make a celebration for the rabbis."[1]
The typical siyum is on a single book of Talmud, or on an entireseder of the Mishna. This is due to the Talmud being an explanation of the Mishna, with each tractate of the Mishnah being relatively short, but the Talmudical version of it occupying an entire book.
Talmud and Mishnah are organized in 6 sections (or "orders"), calledsedarim in Hebrew. Sometimes, a siyum may be made on the completion of all the Mishnah of a seder, rather than the completion of all six at once. Conversely, a larger Talmudic siyum than usual may cover all Talmud in aseder, or even all of the Talmud comprising all six sedarim. Such a siyum is known as a Siyum HaShas, as HaShas is an abbreviation of the Hebrew for "the six orders."
Especially starting in the 20th century, other Judaic religious topics have been used to make a siyum, though often less formal than the standard Mishnah/Talmud siyum. One of the most common is the completion of the Mishna Berurah, a detailed work of the rules Jews practice each day, each Sabbath, and relating to each festival. Young schoolchildren sometimes make an informalsiyum on completion of one of the five books of the Torah ("Books of Moses").
In many cases, the unit of study is not completed by any single person. Instead, the unit is split among participants, who complete one section. Jointly, the participants complete the whole unit.
This is especially common for the completion of the entire six orders of the Mishnah after a person dies before the anniversary, and also frequently for one order of Mishnah within the month after their death.
This format is also sometimes used to complete all the Talmud, with typically a single tractate assigned to each participant (though smaller tractates may be combined or larger tractates broken down further). In especially large groups organized communally, the Talmud may be broken down to the folio level, with thousands of participants. This is sometimes called a Shas-A-Thon, as it allows the enormous body of material to be completed jointly in a short period of time, sometimes a single day.
An event known as a Siyum HaShas marks the completion of the entire Talmud. This is a monumental undertaking, consisting of 2,711folios[2] (5,422 pages) of study.
TheDaf Yomi study program is the largest Siyum HaShas event, with hundreds of thousands of participants. In this program, a schedule of study includes a specificdaf orblatt (folio) to be studied by all participants on any particular day. In this standard calendar, the entire Talmud is covered approximately every seven and a half years. Enormous siyum gatherings follow, arranged around the world.
The main event for the 13th Siyum HaShas, organized byAgudath Israel of America, took place on January 1, 2020, inMetLife Stadium inNew Jersey with a sellout crowd of over 90,000. Other Siyum HaShas events were held globally, with several "satellite" Agidath Israel locations around the United States, and several other arranged in the United States and Israel by theDirshu organization.
Although Siyum HaShas is most commonly associated with Daf Yomi, this is not always the case. Many serious students of the Talmud have completed it on their own schedules, either by themselves, with a partner, or a small study group. However, it is not very common, even among regular Talmudic students and researchers, and those who do so are often viewed as elites.
Another alternative form of Siyum HaShas involves theshared study method (see above).
Asiyum usually includes:
The termsiyum sometimes refers to the celebratory meal itself.
An enduring custom is for the community to complete a unit of Torah or tractate(s) of Talmud during the 30 days following the death of a beloved one and hold a communal siyum thereafter, in tribute and honor of the memory of the deceased (see alsoBereavement in Judaism).
It has become customary forsynagogues to arrange asiyum on the morning beforePassover to allow those fasting forTa’anit Bechorim (Fast of the Firstborn) to break their fast, taking advantage of thehalakhic principle that prioritizesTorah study.
Asiyum ha-sefer, meaning “completion of the book,” is also held as a ceremonial completion and dedication of asefer Torah, a handwritten copy of the Torah, the most importantJewish ritual object, which is kept in theArk of a synagogue. This is not technically related to the other forms of siyum.
Usually, when an individual or a group conclude the study of any tractate of the Talmud, or even of aseder of Mishnah (less commonly, of a single tractate of Mishnah), asiyum is celebrated. At the end of every volume of the Talmud a specialhadran prayer is printed with a set order of prayers and a specialkaddish,Kaddish D'itchadita, in honor of the completion of that volume, which Judaism considers to be an important achievement and a milestone worth celebrating.
In the merit and honor of a deceased individual, it is customary to undertake Mishnah study with the goal of holding asiyum. The entirety of the Mishnah is divided among many family members or volunteers, to be completed atshloshim or atyahrtzeit. (Sometimes, a single seder is completed forshloshim, which may also contribute simultaneously to the completion of all six for theyahrtzeit.)
RabbiMoshe Feinstein (based on theNemukei Yosef, theRan, theRashbam, and theEliyah Rabbah) extends the concept of asiyum to include even a festive meal celebrating the completion of any mitzvah (commandment) that has taken a significant duration of time (such as a number of weeks or months). In contrast, RabbiOsher Weiss suggested that asiyum could be done upon finishing in-depth study of a Biblical book or of a book "from the core of the Oral Torah" such as Mishnah and Gemara, but not upon finishing later works which comment on these books.[3]
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