By: Sandy Eller   It is a mission about to launch, one that will reach the highest celestial heights, though it will have nothing to do with NASA or space travel.  Instead, Mission:Siyum will have Shuvu students and graduates taking on all of Tanach and Shas in an epic campaign marking the organization’s 30th anniversary. Shuvu was established in 1991 when it became abundantly clear that the multitudes of immigrant children streaming into Israel from behind the Iron Curtain were desperately in need of the Jewish education that had been denied them in the Former Soviet Union. Founded at the urging of Moreinu HaRav Avraham Pam zt”l, Shuvu stepped in to fill the gaps in their schooling, providing them with a high quality Jewish and secular education while simultaneously reconnecting them with the religious roots that had nearly been severed by the Communist regime.  Since that time Shuvu has experienced exponential growth, and it currently has an annual budget of $27 million that funds 77 schools and after school programs and 15 summer camps, with 15,000 students and family members reached annually, and 500 bar and bas mitzvahs celebrated each year. Having spent three decades steering children from non-religious homes to lives of Torah and yiddishkeit, it was only fitting for Shuvu to mark its 30th anniversary in a big way.  Since the idea to have Shuvu’s children and alumni committing to learn the entire Tanach and all of Shas over just a few months seemed like an overly ambitious goal, organizers of the project, dubbed Mission:Siyum, hoped that their current and former students could cover perhaps half of the material, the rest to be completed by overseas Shuvu supporters.  Instead, Mission:Siyum was eagerly embraced by the Shuvu community in Israel, with students, parents, avreichim and graduates signing up in droves, committing to learn every perek of Tanach and every masechta of Shas. Shuvu graduate Libby Wallach will be learning all of Sefer Iyov together with her husband, who also signed up for 20 blatt of Gemara. “This is an opportunity to repay just some of the hakaras hatov I have to Shuvu,” said Wallach.  “My olam hazeh and my olam haba are all thanks to Shuvu.” CLICK HERE TO JOIN Meira Grossman and her husband Mayer both volunteered to learn for Mission:Siyum, known in Israel as Atara L’Melech, named after HaRav Pam’s sefer on Chumash.  Meira became well known in the Shuvu family when, as a teenager, she went to her teacher’s home for a Friday night seuda and respectfully informed her parents that she could not travel home with them in the family car, instead making the more than an hour long trip home on foot as her parents drove home slowly by her side.  While Mayer Grossman will be learning 30 blatt in maseches Kiddushin in appreciation for Shuvu gifting him with the ability to build a home saturated with kedusha, Meira will be learning Sefer Zecharya. “Zecharya prophesizes about yemos hamoshiach and our family is a living example of this special time,” explained Meira.  “I am an only child to secular parents and they were zoche to have grandchildren learning Gemara and Mishnayos and shteiging in yiddishkeit.” And with Purim just weeks away, Avigail Molcho, a seminary student in Ofakim, signed up to learn Megilas Esther. […]

The post Mission:Siyum – A Historic Celebration of Shuvu’s 30th Anniversary appeared first on The Yeshiva World.