Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds. Widely ascribed to the good men and women of post offices from sea to shining sea, this statement salutes a work ethic that braves even the toughest of weather conditions. But as the recent blizzards in the Northeast demonstrated, even the most valiant civil servants have their limits. That’s not the case, however, with Daf Yomi maggidei shiur, who know no limits.
With the Siyum now in sight (just 450 days — and the same number of blatt — away), Agudah invited the rabbanim and balabatim who make up the eclectic group of Daf Yomi maggidei shiurim, and their wives, to a special dinner to honor their commitment to the Daf, to the Yomi and to the cause of limud haTorah.
The objective was to solicit their input and give them a taste (quite literally) of the upcoming Big Day. The venue was the Miller Lite MVP Club, one of the club lounges overlooking MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, where the Siyum’s crest lit up the four massive jumbotrons dominating the stadium. Out in the stands, it was a balmy 60 degrees — hopefully a portent of what awaits on the day of the Siyum itself, set for June of next year.
A dinner, by its very nature, involves food. At some events, the cuisine plays an ancillary role. At the “Ta’amei Hasugyos” dinner, organizers specifically made it the focus of the evening by curating a menu that reflected various sugyos throughout Shas. Shmuli Rosenberg of fwd/NYC, the creative genius charged with bringing the message of the Siyum to the masses, teamed up with fellow Daf learners, legendary music producer Gershy Moskowitz and veteran maggid shiur Yossi Gleiberman to curate an evening where the food would serve as a springboard for Torah discussion.
The concept was to incorporate the beis medrash into the kitchen to ensure the food was served with an additional layer not just of flavor, but of meaning. The result was a culinary lineup that featured edible allusions to familiar sugyos, each of which was presented by a different rav. Menus placed on the tables had a list of mareh mekomos, and the rav who presented each sugya then presented the relevant dish, which was rolled out of the makeshift kitchen set up specifically for this function.
Before settling on the “Taamei HaSugyos” menu, Shmuli & Co. had considered other options.
“We went through different variations” Shmuli Rosenberg said as we sat on the bleachers overlooking the massive and eerily quiet stadium, waiting for the event to begin, “We toyed with the idea of serving food similar to the Mesorah dinners, such as cows’ udders, fleishig eggs, or the shibbuta fish.”
The latter is a species that the Gemara mentions as having a flavor reminiscent of treif meat. Most academic and halachic researchers identify it as a Mesopotamian river fish, likely one of the barbel species (Barbus/Luciobarbus) found in the Tigris-Euphrates river system, though it isn’t clear what the exact identification is. The Mesorah-esque idea was ultimately nixed when the mashgichim who were asked to certify the kashrus were hesitant to get behind it.
Other playful ideas were bandied about as well. “There were a lot of puns that would have parlayed well with a gimmickier theme,” said Shmuli. “The Gemara talks about the Bavlae’i being ‘tipshim’ because they eat nahama anahama — bread on top of bread (instead of using a filling in between). We discussed recreating that sandwich to highlight the futility of it, but we also wanted people to enjoy the food.”
The ad hoc team also rejected an idea to set up a bar under the banner “kirzton ish v’ish” from Megillas Esther or the “meimeihem anu shosin (from their waters we drink)” well because of the nature of the crowd. (Attendees did have a choice between still and sparkling Voss). Yossi Gleiberman suggested, tongue in cheek, that the gelatinous wobble known as “p’tcha” and the unapologetically fatty grivin could be served as an example of something that is “eino ra’ui l’achilas kelev.”
Soon enough, the organizers settled on the “Taamei Hasugyos” theme, food that was both enjoyable and meaningful by representing a tangible shakla v’tarya for an especially learned audience. Once that was decided, fellow Daf learner Chef Meshulam Weiss of Michael Schick Catering collaborated to bring the relatively rare concept to well done perfection.
Course 1
AS the prep team was setting up the tables, Chef Weiss welcomed us into his workshop, a makeshift kitchen partitioned off with black curtains from the tables, chairs, and mechitzahs brought in for the evening. Uniformed waiters stood over stacks of boxes of anchovies — those small, silvery saltwater fish sourced in the Mediterranean and Atlantic. In Jewish kitchens with strong Mediterranean roots, the briny fish have long appeared on Shabbos tables alongside salads, eggs, or crackers. Tonight, they represented “machrozes shel dagim” — strings of fish, which the mishnah in Bava Metzia describes as an example of something with no distinctive mark that would help identify it as belonging to a specific owner.
“There were no iceboxes back then,” Chef Weiss said as he dangled a single anchovy before us, “so the fishermen would walk back from the sea with their catches on their fishing rods.” If that string of fish was found, says the Mishnah, it was considered as having no identifiable signs, and the finder could keep it. Chef Weiss authenticated the “fisherman-returning-from-the-sea-look” by having the culinary team thread carrot slivers through the fish. The fish were placed on a bed of lettuce next to another item mentioned in the same mishnah in Bava Metzia: a golden, plump baker’s loaf marked by the distinct ridges cut into the top. In Mishnaic times, bakers’ loaves were distinguished from loaves baked in private homes. The latter was distinct, and thus its owner identifiable. The former, a commercially produced loaf, was not. Weiss added an Italian olive tapenade to the plate, rounding out the fishy opener with a briny Mediterranean finish.
Just as the plates reached the diners, Rabbi Avrohom Neuberger, Rav of Congregation Shaarei Tefillah of New Hempstead and the author of Positive Vision (Artscroll/Mesorah) was at the podium, delivering the opening shiur and taking participants on a fishing expedition through Shas and poskim as it relates to the sugya of dagim. (Rabbi Neuberger, who is also Mishpacha’s rav, wondered aloud why he, out of all the maggidei shiur, was tasked with giving the “appetizer address.” He shrugged and remarked, “The only thing that distinguishes me is that I’m the rav of the Kichels.”)
Course 2
The second course featured der heilige kurkvevan — the holy gizzard — the name drawn from the legendary story told about Rav Boruch Ber (sources also attribute this story to the Mitteler Rebbe of Chabad). Whoever it was, he was asked about the kashrus of a particular gizzard, a kurkevan. He had spent countless hours involved in the intricacies of hilchos treifos and the lomdus in the sugya that is discussed in the teshuvos of the Rashba and tied to one of Chazal’s classic identifying signs of a kosher bird. Upon seeing that the inner lining of the gizzard can be peeled back, encountering the actual kurkevan elicited an emotional response and Rav Boruch Ber (or the Mitteler Rebbe) exclaimed “Der heiliger kurkevan — the holy gizzard!”
Two centuries later, guests enjoyed pieces of der heilige kurkevan slow-cooked in a light vegetable-and-herb broth ladled into wide bowls and set over small mounds of aromatic rice. One of the “reid bites” that appeared in the menu/mareh mekomos booklet suggested that: “For Rav Boruch Ber, once something becomes the subject of Torah learning — something that the Rashba analyzed — it is elevated. Even a simple gizzard can become holy.”
However, Rabbi Shlomo Cynamon, of Flatbush’s Khal Bnei Torah Flatbush, who delivered an appropriately lomdishe shiur on der heilige kurkevan, offered an alternative pshat to Rav Boruch Ber’s reaction. He cited Rav Boruch Ber’s rebbi, Rav Chaim Soloveitchik, who posed a chakirah deliberating if the simanim of kosher birds are a siman (a sign) that they are kosher, or if the said simanim are the sibah (the reason) that the birds are kosher. Said Rabbi Cynamon: “Rav Boruch Ber was going on the tzad that the gizzard being peeled is the reason that a bird is kosher, and that’s why, according to him, it was literally der heilige kurkevan!”
Course 3
What’s a dinner in 2026 without some kind of board? In course number three, both the meat and the board served as a springboard for halachic analysis. The “board” itself — a plank of wood — represented the “daf shel nachtomim,” or baker’s wooden board referred to in the Gemara. These humble peshutei klei etz (simple wooden utensils) occupy their own quiet corner in the intricate and complex laws of tumah v’taharah, while the meat that topped the boards was drawn from the Gemara in Bava Metzia, which relates that Rabbah bar Rav Huna would cut his meat into ocheles karna — three-cornered pieces.
“We suggested the concept of having triangular pieces of meat on the boards and Meshulem executed it into personal charcuterie boards with a trio of meat slices uniquely cut,” said Shmuli. The meat boards befittingly included tongue, similar to the meal Avraham Avinu prepared for his mysterious angelic guests. And just as mustard was the condiment of choice at Avraham’s meal, the “tongue crostini trio” at MetLife came with a generous serving of the tangy yellow relish (and a skewer of baby gherkins).
In his presentation, Rabbi Yitzchk Frankel of the Agudath Israel of the Five Towns offered a deeper look into the world of kashrus, and shared some of his personal experiences in the field.
Course 4
After the boards were cleared, the kitchen shifted to the intense sugyos in Maseches Shabbos that discuss to what extent food must be cooked before it may be left on the fire as Shabbos approaches. Chazal define two of the stages as k’maachal ben Drusai, the point at which a dish has reached minimal edibility, named for the notorious bandit who, fearing capture at any moment, ate his food while it was only partially cooked, roughly a third or halfway done. Another stage is mitztamek v’yafeh lo (food that improves as it continues to cook and reduce). To showcase the two stages, the culinary team served a meat duo. One piece of fillet steak prepared sous vide, a technique in which the meat is gently cooked in a precisely controlled water bath before a final high-heat sear creates a caramelized crust.
In the kitchen, the mashgiach explained how chefs achieve that look, showing us a temperature-controlled water bath, where the meat cooks gently and evenly, sometimes for an hour or more. Because the water never rises above the exact target temperature (130°F for medium rare), the meat can’t accidentally overcook. Only after that slow bath does the chef finish the steak with a quick, high-heat sear, creating the browned crust while leaving the inside a perfect blush color. The maggidei shiur enjoyed their steaks cooked, but the appearance was that of k’maachel ben Drusai. While the fillet enjoyed its water bath, the kitchen staff simmered a short rib in a red wine demi-glace and serving it over a parsnip puree. The two stages in halachah, met over steak.
Rabbi Noach Isaac Oelbaum, Rav of Khal Nachlas Yitzchak in Queens, accompanied the intense food course with an appropriately intense and fiery shiur. Organizers also added a small challenge to this course. Beside the beefs, they planted two, seemingly identical Idaho potatoes, both of the same cut, same seasoning and same golden roast. But there was a catch. The chefs roasted one in duck fat, and dunked the other in olive oil. The difference was only in the absorbed flavor. Would eaters be able to tell the difference? The challenge drew on the halachic principle of taam k’ikar: that taste itself can carry the legal status of the food from which it comes. Thus, the “Taam K’Ikar Challenge.”
Course 5
The organizers closed out the evening’s culinary journey with a nod to an era far back in time — that of the Beis Hamikdash itself. They drew inspiration for the dessert from the Korban Minchah, specifically the Minchas Marcheshes described in the current masechta of Daf Yomi, Menachos, as one of the offerings prepared in a deep pan where the batter would gently simmer and settle in oil. Chazal explain that the Marcheshes was deep, and its contents simmered in oil, symbolizing actions enriched and elevated by the “oil” of Torah. In tribute to the Korban Minchah, the chefs prepared a final course of citrus-infused olive oil cake, baked in a deep pan and finished with warm extra-virgin olive oil and Italian-glazed oranges resting peacefully on top.
“As we conclude this evening’s culinary exploration of the ta’amei hasugyos, we look forward with hope to the day when the avodah of the Beis Hamikdash will be restored, and when we will gather together once again to celebrate the completion of Shas bimheirah in Yerushalayim,” the booklet provided.
Just like the dessert itself, the drashah that it came along with it was lighter than the preceding ones. Yossi Gleiberman, whose creativity and yedios in Gemara were essential to the dinner, has carved out a niche in the Daf world as the “Songs of Shas” Yid. He has composed a whimsical poem that runs through the major theme of every masechta upon its completion. His tune has become familiar to Daf learners since the beginning of the last cycle.
As attendees were enjoying their fruit-topped dessert, Yossi took to the stage to share a medley specially composed for that evening. He looked around the audience, all talmidei chachamim well-versed in the sugyos that run the gamut of Shas, and smiled. Food is so prevalent a topic in Shas, coming up in sugyos that cover kashrus, taharah, brachos, kodshim, Shabbos, shiurim, aggadeta, and so, so many more. Yossi himself curated the menu, but still, it was limited.
“ ‘Zecher l’Minchas Marcheshes’ means that this is only a commemoration,” he started, “ but actually the entire menu tonight is only a representation,” he sang, segueing into the high part: “The number of different maachalim I would have added, if only I had a dei’ah” — here, the crowd awaited the punch line: “The menu served this evening would be batel b’shishim, or even b’me’ah!”
There was laughter and applause. Then Maariv, followed by a dash home. Tomorrow was fast approaching, and with it, another Daf — and a shiur — waiting.
(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1104)