History Tidbit: Daf Yomi Siyum on Maseches Shekolim

Agudah's Daf Yomi Commission - A history tidbit to celebrate: Maseches Shekalim, the only masechta from Talmud Yerushalmi that is included in the regular Daf Yomi schedule, is only 13 dafim in the Slavita edition of Shas, upon which the original Daf Yomi calendar was based. The later Vilna Shas edition included in its publication on Shekalim a commentary תקלין חדתין, which expanded the masechta to 21 blatt. Many of the Daf Yomi maggidei shiur found it too difficult to cover Shekalim adequately in just 13 days. There was simply too much

material to be absorbed properly. In the early 1970s, Rabbi Yosef Aronson zt”l, a talmid of the Slabodka Yeshiva, who taught the daf for many years, attempted to solve this problem. First, he wrote Sefer Shiklei Yosef, a simple running commentary that serves as a digest of the classic perushim on Maseches Shekalim. Second, in consultation with the gedolei Torah of that era, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein zt”l, and the Bais Yisroel of Ger zt”l, he suggested that the Daf Yomi calendar follow the Vilna edition of Shekalim rather than the Slavita edition, to allow for 21 days instead of the original 13 to cover the masechta. With the beginning of the 8th machzor of Daf Yomi in 1975, the Daf Yomi calendar was changed to include 21 days of Maseches Shekalim as per the Vilna Shas