Yedidya Meir: Dr. Jonathan Schussheim's Tractate Completion Is an Event That Creates Noise in the Heavens

1. "I would be very glad if you could find two minutes to talk to me," Dr. Jonathan Schussheim wrote to me this week, "I want to share something with you that I think will be important to you."

Dr. Jonathan Schussheim, a specialist in gynecology, is the son of the late Dr. Eli Schussheim, the man and the legend, founder of the 'Efrat' organization. I thought he was looking for me regarding the organization's activities, but no. "I'm talking to you as the father of Emuna, who was engaged to Yehonatan Deutsch, of blessed memory," he began.

He didn't need to refresh my memory. Even in such a difficult year, with so many fallen, it is impossible to forget the story of the charming young man who was murdered in a shooting attack in the valley, a few weeks before his wedding, and a few days after returning from battles in Khan Yunis. I also remembered that Yehonatan was called up to Nachal Oz on Simchat Torah, went with his team in Maglan between the houses and saved lives.

"You deal a lot with the daily page," Schussheim told me, "I had the privilege of completing the tractate Bava Batra this morning, and I wrote a text, with my feelings around this completion."

Thank you for thinking of me, I told him. I am happy and excited every time anew to read texts from people who write about their encounter with the daily page and what it has done to their lives (this is exactly why my email address appears here at the top of the page).

Dr. Schussheim sent me the text, I started reading, and I immediately understood that with all due respect to other finishers or beginners this week - and there is much respect! - his story is something special.

2. "It was undoubtedly the hardest completion of my life," Dr. Schussheim opened. "And no, it’s not related to the difficulty of the tractate, as there are tractates I’ve already completed that are more difficult than Bava Batra. It’s also not its length. The reason lies in something completely different, and that is the fact that this is the first completion I’m doing after my previous completion.

"Someone might ask: obviously after the previous completion, the current one would come. Well, when I was about to make the current tractate completion, I cannot disconnect from the previous one, of tractate Bava Metzia, which accompanies me every day, relentlessly. That completion I made on a Friday, the 15th of Sivan, on the eve of Shabbat Parashat Beha’alotcha 5784, at the engagement party of our daughter Emuna with her fiancé, Yehonatan Deutsch.

"I wanted to give the young couple a spiritual gift with special meaning, so I held a completion at the party on tractate Bava Metzia. When I spoke, I connected the first mishna in the tractate to correct marital conduct, but what engraved deep in my heart and mind, and returns to me at all times, are the words I said to them later: In life, just like in the Talmud, we move from one tractate to another: from 'Infancy', then the 'Childhood' tractate, 'Adolescence,' and so forth. Each tractate has its uniqueness, its challenges, and its special moments. And here you are now, reaching the 'Engagement' tractate, an amazing, formative tractate that teaches us a lot for the future. I advised them on how to approach this tractate, what matters and what doesn’t, and spoke about the grand and joyous 'completion' we will hold for them for this tractate on their wedding day and transitioning from the 'Engagement' tractate to the 'Kiddushin' tractate, and ended my words with the statement that I have no doubt there will be times they will want to return to this tractate and recreate it, so it is important they invest in it, and I wish them success in always being in this mindset – the engagement mindset. I never dreamed what meaning this sentence would have later on...".

3. "Tractate Bava Metzia was completed," Schussheim writes, "and immediately afterwards I began studying tractate Bava Batra, with the anticipation of a long and fascinating journey through the longest tractate in the Talmud, with the excitement of a new tractate and the wonder of how the study will be. I never imagined that the study of this tractate would be the hardest in my life. On Sunday, the 7th of Av 5784, Yehonatan, of blessed memory, was murdered at the Mechola junction, on his way to our home in the settlement of Ofra to meet Emuna and continue dealing with the 'Engagement' tractate and preparing for the 'Kiddushin' tractate.

"There are no words and there never will be words to describe the magnitude of the break, shock, and pain we all felt in those terrible days. Only after a few days did I try to return to the routine study of the daily page, and I discovered, unsurprisingly, that it became indescribably difficult. Waking up early after sleepless nights, opening the Talmud with powerless hands, a hopeless attempt to settle the mind genuinely that allows proper learning, and too many moments when all I see when I look at the page are letters floating in the air".

4. Wow. We've heard many bereaved parents this year, unfortunately. We've heard many widows. But Dr. Schussheim didn’t even sit shiva for someone who was almost his son-in-law. In fact, he is in the second circle, the one meant to strengthen the mourners.

I recently heard a deep definition of this state from Dr. Yossi Ben Gal, grandfather of Captain Roi Beit Yaakov, of blessed memory. Yossi said that he, the grandfather, doesn't sit shiva but "stands shiva." What an accurate description. Standing shiva. The grandparents of the fallen stand around the grieving parents to support them, care for them, strengthen them, but they themselves also need strength and comfort.

Returning to Dr. Schussheim and the letters floating in the air before him. "So how did I continue to study the page, day by day, and reach the finish line of tractate Bava Batra this week?", he asks, and answers: "The simple and obvious answer to this complex question is: thanks to and for Yehonatan, of blessed memory. In the first days when I tried to return to study, the engine that gave me basic strength was the desire to study for the elevation of his soul. It was very important but did not provide all the strength needed for this. I kept searching for more and more sources from which I could draw strength to continue the daily journey. Not long after, it happened, and it came directly from Yehonatan, of blessed memory. Uri, Yehonatan's father, may he be distinguished for a long life, sent me a message one morning, sent to him by an acquaintance, who said she had been to several weddings and decided to adorn the gifts she gave to couples with powerful words that Yehonatan said at his engagement party on the balcony of our house.

"Although I sat close to him, I didn’t grasp in real-time the depth and significance of the short words he uttered naturally at that event. And so did the groom Yehonatan, of blessed memory, who received a short leave from battles in Khan Yunis for the engagement say: 'War is the easy part. The heavy events are the easy part. What in the end acquires the land, acquires a state, acquires a nation – is another home, another family, and more small acts we perform. The routine of life. That in the end is what builds a land. In this matter, I feel I have a huge privilege, to join. I truly believe it’s not just a part, in addition to the war we are waging now – but this is the War.'

"In the second I read these words, I received the answer I was waiting for, the strength I needed. They left me with no option to give up, throw in the towel, despair. I saw Yehonatan before my eyes, speaking about the importance of small deeds, about the routine of life, and I couldn’t think that now I’ll disappoint him and won’t uphold his legacy spoken in our home, mere inches away from me. That couldn’t be an option for me".

5. Again, wow. Not a few soldiers in Gaza or Lebanon adhere to the study of the daily page. It’s an amazing thing. We saw moving pictures of them. We liked. But there are no pictures of the father of the bridegroom, who lost his future son-in-law, sitting in front of the Talmud in the early morning at his quiet home in Ofra, after a sleepless night, before a busy day at the clinic, trying to cling to the daily page. How many more heroes like him exist?

I am not just talking about the bereaved families. But even, on a different note, about someone displaced from Kiryat Shmona, trying to maintain their study order amidst chaotic life. How much emotional strength it takes for that. And how much emotional strength is gained from it. This should also be remembered. After all, the daily page does not remain in debt. The meaning that study gives, the anchor, the connection to eternity, the sanity, the joy. It’s something worth this effort. As Yishai Ribo sings in his new song about Torah study: 'If not for Your Torah, my delight, I would have perished in my affliction; if not for Your Torah, my delight, you illuminated my days, you saved my life'.

6. "Every day since then," Dr. Schussheim continues, "when I sit down early in the morning in front of the page I’m supposed to study that day, despite all the difficulties, fatigue, and heart and soul aches, I think of that sentence, and it gives me the strength and the ability to study and continue. I would be lying if I said things are easy or that concentration in study is as it was before, but for me, even learning in its current form is a type of victory, of the routine of life. Those are the small deeds we must continue to do. And so, day by day, a new battle, until the conquest of the target of completing the tractate. For Yehonatan, and undoubtedly from Yehonatan's strength.

In the most symbolic way, in the days close to finishing the tractate, we were all informed about another completion. The end of the pursuit of the murder cell that carried out the heinous murder, in the killing of two of them and the capture of the third. Undoubtedly, it’s an end we were waiting for. It doesn’t bring consolation or salvation, but it brings justice, law, truth, and morals. Exactly these are the values that form the basis for the next tractate, the Sanhedrin tractate. I will also study it, G-d willing, with all its complexities, for Yehonatan and from his strength, in prayer that He who brings about salvations and binds the broken-hearted will heal our pain and bring us all salvations and comforts".

Dr. Schussheim finishes the letter with a description of the completion itself: "If the day of completion is supposed to be a type of 'good day' for the one finishing, then for me it was a complex and not simple day. The thoughts, the memories, the wonderings, and the daily pain cannot allow a real celebration at the end of the tractate. This is the reason I chose not to mark the end as is usual and customary - with joy and publicly. I didn’t have the emotional strength for it. I finished the last lines of study, said the completion text to myself, and opened the Sanhedrin tractate to begin the next study".

7. Many festive completions are taking place these days. Elaborate, big, and very joyful. That's how it should be. With many people, the king's glory is enhanced. It’s important for the learners, it’s important for the learners' families who are also an integral part of the celebration, and it’s important for the honor of the Torah. But I am sure that this tiny, personal completion, of one man, saying to himself, in a choked voice, 'I will not forget you, tractate Bava Batra, not in this world nor in the world to come,' made a great noise in the heavens.

It seems to me that the resonant and obligatory message of the words is clear. How much we need Torah study these days, for protection, for help from the Heavens, for the fighters, for the abductees, and for all of Israel. But I’ll let Dr. Schussheim have the final words: "May these words, along with the rest of my studies, be for the elevation of the holy Yehonatan Yaakov son of Uri Yosef, of blessed memory. And if they provide strength even to one more person struggling with study, and through this, they continue their learning despite all difficulties, this too will be to Yehonatan’s merit."

The column was published in "B'Sheva" newspaper.