Hadran (Talmud)

'we returned') is a short prayer recited upon the completion of study of a tractate of the Talmud or a Seder of Mishnah.

It is also the name of the scholarly discourse delivered at a siyum masechet, the ceremony celebrating the completion of study of a Talmudic tractate.

Versions of the prayer appear in some medieval manuscripts of the Talmud and in the commentary of Chananel ben Chushiel.

The first extant secondary description of the prayer, already including the list of Bar Pappas, appears in a teshuva of Hayy Gaon (d. 1038; Groner's list #1092;[1] one MS: Sherira Gaon) quoted by Abraham ben Isaac of Narbonne:They asked Rav Hayy .

there were certainly ten of them, and the scholars know a mnemonic which they say will dispel forgetfulness, such that whenever the scholars finish a chapter, and begin it anew, as is customary, they say, 'Master returned to her, we have returned to you, hanana rama leih nahama le-ahvei aba de-vavei de-apeik le-rikhshei sarhabei ada le-vei daru'.

[9] The wording of the hadran is an expression of love and friendship, as if the tractate has become the learner's friend since he has studied it, and he longs to be reunited with it.

[10][11] According to Yoma Tova LeRabbanan, the repetition of the hadran three times is a segulah (propitious remedy) for remembering what one has learned.

[12] It is customary for a scholar to deliver a Talmudic discourse at a siyum being made on the completion of a tractate.

[14][15][16] At the 5th Siyum HaShas of Daf Yomi in Tel Aviv in 1960, Rabbi Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman, the Ponovezher Rav, delivered a hadran for nearly two hours.