Daf Yomi, 2 years down, 5.5 to go

Happy Birthday to my baby who turned 7 years old yesterday which also happens to be the anniversary of when we started Daf Yomi.

When I started the Daf Yomi, you can read past posts from last year at the 1st anniversary, I wondered if I would stick with it.

It is hard to spend about 45 minutes a day, on average, doing something for yourself. No PR side, no monetary side, no work benefits, just pure learning for the sake of learning.

What have I been learning? Here is a simple breakdown of the last 2 years:

We are still in what is referred to as Sefer Moed, Wikipedia has a nice breakdown here.
Along the way the last 2 years we finished the Tractate of Berachot which discussed blessings and other daily life aspects.

Then we did Shabbat which discussed Shabbat and all types of aspects which led to Eruvin which is about spaces and the ability to carry on Shabbat.

We then moved onto Pesachim this year which deals with laws and customs of Passover, among other holidays.

Next up was Shekalim which discussed giving half a shekel to count people and for the upkeep of the temple or Beit Hamikdash.This is the only Tractate not found in the Babylonian Talmud and is only in the Jerusalem Talmud but is included in the Daf Yomi.

Followed by Yoma which discusses Yom Kippur and the Cohen temple services.

After Yoma was Sukka which makes sense as the holiday follows only a few days behind Yom Kippur.

The next one was Beitza which is not about eggs per se, but more about cooking and general laws of holidays and cooking.

After this was Rosh Hashana, while you would think it should be before Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashana deals with not just the new year, but the new year for trees, for kings, for planting and other similar events.

Then came Taanit which discusses fast days, why we have them, what we can and can't do on them. Given Tisha B'Av, one of the only 2 major fast days is Tuesday night and Wednesday it was nice to complete it recently.

We currently are on Megilla which discusses all things related to Purim, Torah readings and how many people to call up and how many sentences to read.

Knowing all of this is helpful, yet does not make me, or anyone else, better to answer questions or provide guidance. I prefer to think of it as background details that I may have forgotten or never learned. After all in school we were lucky to finish a chapter of any Tractate during the school year, let alone an entire one.

So onward I go to another year.