Betsy Frank

f you’re looking for a sustaining project you can tackle one day at a time, I’d like to suggest joining me for Daf Yomi, a culturally enriching scholarly exercise where Jews all over the world study a page of Talmud a day.

January 5, 2020, began the latest 7 1/2-year cycle of Daf Yomi, which myjewishlearning.com describes as “the longest-running Jewish book club“.

Rabbi Meir Shapiro founded the movement in 1923 in Poland. The Talmud’s 37 volumes take 7 1/2 years to read on a page-a-day schedule, placing us in the 14th repeating cycle of Daf Yomi.

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So many of us travel to warmer climates during winter to escape the cold. This year, Dick and I made our escape with a cruise to the Caribbean.

During this most recent cruise, we joined 30 passengers for Erev Shabbat services on ship led by a gentleman from Mobile, Ala. Yes, there are Jews in Alabama!

On Saturday morning, about half those from Friday’s session joined Shabbat services at Mikve Israel-Emanuel Synagogue, 40 miles from the Venezuelan coast on the Dutch Caribbean Island of Curaçao.

The synagogue was consecrated in 1732 and has been in continuous operation ever since, making it the oldest in the Americas.

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As I write this month’s column, I am still experiencing a “high” from attending the Union of Reform Judaism Biennial convention at McCormick Place in Chicago.

There is nothing like celebrating Shabbat services with 5,000 people. But the most rewarding feature for me was to see all the high school and college students enthusiastically participating in services and other sessions.

I took part in sessions targeted at small congregations and gained useful ideas that we can initiate at UHC.

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