Megillah

[rhu]

Daf Yomi (the "page-a-day" study cycle of Talmud) starts Tractate Megillah on Friday. Coincidentally, Purim falls three weeks from Sunday. Megillah is 31 dapim long, so Daf Yomi will conclude the cycle one week after Purim, Sunday March 11, which happens to be my birthday.

I've been inspired by the rawr_comm community's strength in motivating its members to exercise regularly, and since I fell off the Daf Yomi wagon about a month ago, I was hoping to maybe gather a small community online to learn Megillah together.

I'm thinking that such a community could complement the various free online Daf Yomi resources. And, properly done, it would be accessible even to those with limited background in Judaism and Talmud study. Basically I envision a rotation among volunteers to "prepare" the daf in advance, posting a precis with background and commentary on each day's daf. Edited to add: I've created a community at megillah2a and one post, to give you a sense of what it might be like.

IIRC, Megillah is one of the easier tractates. And it would be seasonal. And we could have an e-siyyum on my birthday. :-)

If you'd be interested in writing for such a community or in following along, please reply to this post. If there are enough takers, I'll kick it off before the weekend.

Comments

[hatam-soferet.livejournal.com]

There's the daf-yomi lj community. It's pretty quiet atm, but would be a good forum, being designed for this sort of thing. I can't commit to writing anything in advance, not with the number of Megillot I'm writing this year, but I did just learn loads of it with my bat mitzvah kid, so I might be able to respond intelligently :)

[jeffurrynpl.livejournal.com]

Purim was always my favorite holiday because it sometimes fell on my birthday (the day after yours). Gawd, I'm so self-absorbed! :{)}

[cellio]

I'm interested in following. I don't know if I'm good enough to write.

[angwantibo.livejournal.com]

Count me in. Purim this year will be interesting, so why not add to the excitement?

My sister-in-law is performing at Carnegie Hall Saturday evening, March 3rd. We're having a family megilah reading / purim party. My future brother-in-law (engaged to a different sister-in-law) will be doing most of the reading, but I'll pitch in a little.