Siyum Hashas Update

My misgivings about having our younger son's entire high school attend the Siyum Hashas seem to have been well-founded.

On a practical level, attending the siyum had its problems. The boys got back from Continental Arena at 1 a.m. last night. To his credit, OYS managed to crawl out of bed only 15 minutes after I first woke him. His entire car pool, on the other hand, was fafallen, so I had to drive him to school myself (and I made my train with 5 seconds to spare). Many of the boys missed davening and I assume the level of learning this morning will be shvach.

In terms of the siyum itself, the only thing that made much of an impression was mincha. There were many speeches, many of them long and in Yiddish and OYS (and I assume the vast majority of the boys in his school) tuned out.

What the school really should have done, in recognition of the limited attention span of 15-18 year old boys and their ignorance of Yiddish, was leave after the siyum itself. But, of course, this would have been politically incorrect so the boys were forced to suffer throug a few hours of boredom.

Net-net, I'm not sure what the school accomplished.