synagogue spotlight
P’nai Or Members
Lose Themselves in Prayer
Jarrad Saff ren | Staff Writer
F 28
APRIL 6, 2023 | JEWISH EXPONENT
P’nai Or members read Torah together.

the community to Zoom. But even
as COVID faded in 2022 and ’23,
a large portion of the congregation
stayed online. The rabbi breaks her
members down into two categories
now: “Zoomers and roomers,” she
said, meaning those who pray online
and those who come to the sanctuary.

There are about 30 Zoomers and 20
roomers each week.

The Zoomers live in Arizona, New
Mexico, New England, Colorado and
other places. Many heard about P’nai
Or through word of mouth. Some were
past congregants who moved away.

The roomers live in Mount Airy, Center
City, Cherry Hill, Bucks County and
other areas. Prager estimates that
membership has grown “a smidge”
during COVID. But at a synagogue with
no property and no school, growth is
not Prager’s goal.

“Our members tend to be empty
nesters or folks whose kids already
graduated from Hebrew school and
are looking for personal, meaningful
Jewish experiences for themselves,”
the rabbi said.

Tobie Hoff man, 69, is a Mount Airy
resident who walks to services. A P’nai
Or member for 30 years, she said that
congregants do not pray. They learn to
“be in prayer.”
“Emotionally, spiritually, physically
being in prayer,” Hoff man added.

“That’s really what I get out of it, and
why I keep going.”
Kohn, a member since 1998,
explained that there are times when
services are “ecstatically joyful” and
times when “it’s very deep and quiet.”
Segura, who is moving to Philadelphia
to be near her daughter, said that,
even over Zoom, she feels like Jewish
songs at the synagogue transport her
“to a place other than the physical
plane.” Pearl, a congregant since 1997,
believes that intentionality and deep
feeling lead to true belief.

“It’s having a deep knowing. It’s not just,
‘Oh, that’s nice. Oh yeah, God expects this
from us.’ It encourages a deep connection
with whatever your concept of God is,”
she explained. “We experience God. We
don’t just pray to God.”
But this process is not just internal.

Zoomers and roomers do it together.

Hoff man is single. Her family members
live in other cities, so she depends on
her fellow synagogue members.

During Yom Kippur, P’nai Or was in
person for the fi rst time since 2019.

Hoff man attended and, at one point,
she looked around the room and
realized that she knew everyone —
and that they all knew her.

“I feel like I’m at home. There’s a
sense of closeness,” she said. “I know
I have people to count on. I do rely on
people here a lot.” ■
jsaff ren@midatlanticmedia.com
Photo by Rabbi Marcia Prager
rank Kohn, 64, is a Mount Airy
resident who walks to Shabbat
services at P’nai Or. Batya
Segura, 66, lives in Florida but attends
via Zoom (though she is in the process
of moving to Philadelphia). And Sharon
Pearl, 70, resides in Cherry Hill, New
Jersey, but travels into the city each
week for Shabbat.

They come from diff erent places
and attend services in diff erent ways.

But for all three members, and more
than 40 others, it’s important to be
at Summit Presbyterian Church, P’nai
Or’s rented sanctuary, every Friday
night. That’s because, as Kohn, Segura
and Pearl explain, the congregation’s
prayer sessions are not about going
through the motions. Rabbi Marcia
Prager directs the service by explaining
the prayers and why congregants are
saying them. Nobody moves too fast,
which enables everybody to under-
stand the words and their meanings,
to feel their connections with God and
to immerse themselves in the moment.

“It’s spiritually alive,” Pearl said.

On Google, P’nai Or describes itself
as Philadelphia’s Jewish Renewal
Community. On Facebook, it refers
to itself as P’nai Or Jewish Renewal
Congregation of Philadelphia. Its goal
is to help Jewish adults deepen their
spirituality, regardless of where they
may be on their Jewish journeys. As
Kohn put it, the congregation of 80
or so members has “people who are
shomer Shabbos and people who light
candles.” It doesn’t matter. There’s no
judgment. There is only a space, now
both virtual and physical, in which
people pray.

The multidimensional nature of
that space developed, as it did at so
many synagogues, during COVID. In
2020, after the pandemic broke out,
Prager transitioned the services and



d’var torah
Considering Passover Rituals
Rabbi Geri Newburge
T Pesach
here is a story about Rabbi Akiva at
the Passover seder in the Talmud.

He would distribute roasted grains and
nuts to the children so they would stay
awake and they would ask questions.

Later on in the same passage, Rabbi
Eliezer teaches: One grabs the matzot
on the nights of Passover and should
eat them very quickly on account of
the children, so that due to the hasty
consumption of the meal, they will
not sleep and they will inquire about
the meaning of this unusual practice.

(Pesahim 108b-109a)
elements my ancestors developed for
this holiday meal, but there are several
inspiring and engaging Sephardic tradi-
tions worth considering for your seder
this year as we seek to keep our children
(of all ages) engaged with the ritual.

The fi rst minhag (custom) that quite
literally helps tell the story is a “reenact-
ment” of the Exodus from Egypt. After
either the step of Yachatz (breaking
of the middle matzah) or during the
Maggid, many Sephardim wrap the
afi koman in a large napkin, tie it with a
string and give it to one of the children
at the seder. Then the child slings the
napkin over his or her shoulder while
the leader of the seder asks a series of
questions to the child:
We can never receive too many blessings.

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2022-2023 Some communities extend this
reenactment beyond the children and
include all seder participants!
A second minhag found in the
Sephardic tradition is to place maror
— the bitter herbs — at the very center
of the seder plate. This follows the
understanding of Rabbi Isaac Luria, the
16th-century mystic from Tzfat.

This practice has contemporary
implications. By placing maror in the
middle, we expand our understand-
ing of the Haggadah to include our
people’s bitter experiences beyond
ancient Egypt. We remember the
Rabbi Geri Newburge is the senior
rabbi at Main Line Reform Temple in
Wynnewood. The Board of Rabbis
of Greater Philadelphia is proud to
provide diverse perspectives on Torah
commentary for the Jewish Exponent.

The opinions expressed in this column
are the author’s own and do not
necessarily refl ect the view of the
Board of Rabbis.

Exponent 1. “From where have you come?” The
child answers: “I have come from
Egypt.” 2. The Passover seder leader then
asks: “Where are you going?”
The child answers: “I am going to
Jerusalem.” 3. Finally, the Passover seder leader
asks: “What are you taking with
you?” The child then points to the
sack or napkin full of matzah.

We can never receive too many
blessings, and I hope these rituals
bring a renewed sense of wonder and
inspiration to you and your loved ones
for a meaningful seder. Wishing you a
zissen Pesach! ■
Philadelphia Jewish
But the idea of engaging the children
predates these thoughtful rabbis. In the
Torah portion for the fi rst day of Pesach
we read, “You shall observe this as an
institution for all time, for you and your
descendants, and when you enter the
land God will give you, as promised,
you shall observe this rite. When your
children ask you, ‘What do you mean
by this rite?’ you shall say, ‘It is the
Passover sacrifi ce to God, who passed
over the houses of the Israelites in
Egypt when smiting the Egyptians, but
saved our houses.’" (Ex 12:24-27)
Even when our ancestors were still in
Egypt, they focused on the primacy of
telling the next generations about what
they experienced. Of course, how we
tell the story is open to interpretation
and creativity, and the Haggadah is a
testament to the various ways we share
the narrative, from the asking of the Four
Questions to the Four Children to the
manner of counting the Ten Plagues.

As with other holiday traditions, the
seder practices evolved diff erently
in diff erent locales. I’m an Ashkenazi
Jew and am familiar with many of the
Jewish people’s persecution under the
Babylonians and Romans, countless
inquisitions, expulsions and pogroms
under the tyranny of too many oppres-
sors. Maror includes the bitterness
of concentration camps, and it even
allows for refl ection on the contempo-
rary resurgence of antisemitism.

Last (for this column but there are
many other practices worth explor-
ing), is a Moroccan tradition that
transitions into the Maggid section of
the Haggadah. Everyone chants the
Hebrew: Bibhilu yatzaanu mimitzraim
ha lachma anya benai chorin (“It is with
haste that we came out of Egypt, and
this is the bread of affl iction we ate.”)
While these words are chanted, the
head of the family holds the seder
plate above the head of each attendee,
circling three times and often reciting a
blessing for each participant.

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