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Zoom Beit Midrash Celebrates
Kiloversary, 1,000 Days of Meeting
Sasha Rogelberg | Staff Writer
Courtesy of Stew Feinberg
T he World Health Organization
declared COVID a pandemic on
March 11, 2020, 1,016 days ago
from this article’s Dec. 22 publication.

For more than 1,000 of those days,
a Zoom beit midrash has met virtu-
ally, gathering to discuss Torah, prayer
and Jewish philosophy and culture.

The group has hosted Rabbi Irving
Greenberg, author of “The Jewish
Way,” and Rising Song Institute’s Joey
Weisenberg, among other lecturers.

On Dec. 16, the group, led by West
Chester synagogue Kesher Israel
Congregation member Rabbi Dr. Maury
Hoberman, celebrated its kiloversary
and 1,000th meeting.

“It’s really special because their par-
ticipation is special,” Hoberman said
of the group. “People come at this from
different aspects of how they relate the
Torah portion to their personal lives
and how they relate the history or the
music to their personal lives, which
makes it fascinating. It’s really a very
diverse group.”
Beyond philosophical conversations,
the non-denominational group made up
of mostly 50- to 70-year-olds has music
Thursdays, where one participant selects
a genre or song to play for the group.

Each daily meeting, including abbre-
viated Saturday Shabbat services, ends
with a misheberach, prayer for healing,
and a five-minute meditation.

In addition to a regular 10-25 per-
son daily attendance, Hoberman pro-
vides recordings of the daily meetings to
about 20 members who can’t attend the
9:30 a.m. sessions. While many attend-
ees hail from West Chester and Kesher
Israel, others are snowbirds in Florida
or are from as far away as California
and learned about the group via word
of mouth.

“[Hoberman] is really engaging. His
mission is to really teach people, and he’s
very good at it,” said Neshamah Diana
Faraone, a beit midrash member outside
of San Francisco. “It didn’t matter to me
that it was early in the morning.”
Before becoming a rabbi, Hoberman
was a surgeon. After retirement,
Hoberman, now an octogenarian, pur-
sued his ordination and received his
semikhah from ALEPH: Alliance for
Jewish Renewal in 2019. After meeting
Faraone at an ALEPH-led Jewish heritage
trip to Italy in 2016 and emailing back-
and-forth for several years, Hoberman
invited Faraone to the beit midrash.

Hoberman hosted the first beit mid-
rash on March 22, 2020, according to
Stew Feinberg, the group’s de facto his-
torian and record keeper, who attended
that meeting.

The group was designed to be a way
for Hoberman to foster Jewish commu-
nity in a time of isolation and disorien-
tation. After advertising the group in a
post on the Kesher Israel Facebook page,
Hoberman was joined by a couple dozen
interested parties. In July, Hoberman
had planned to reassess whether the
group was still necessary, but people
kept showing up.

“That was about 950 beit midrashes
ago,” Feinberg said.

Many members touted Hoberman’s
teaching style, which invites partici-
pants to join in to conversations after
Hoberman introduces various top-
ics. Faraone remembers a particularly
engaging conversation about whether
animals have souls — a topic that
emerged after several members had pets
who died.

“People really feel included and cared
for,” she said.

Beyond the discussions and lec-
tures, the beit midrash has become a
social system and support group for
some members. West Chester residents
attend Kesher Israel services together
on Saturday or hang out in each others’
homes. For member Shellie Herdan,
who joined the beit midrash a couple
of months after it began, the group was
a source of comfort after her husband’s
death. “I needed to do kaddish, so I did it
with them — for 30 days with them,
every day,” she said. “And then I stayed.”
The Zoom beit midrash, organized by Rabbi Dr. Maury Hoberman, hosted Rabbi
Irving Greenberg, author of “The Jewish Way.”
The beit midrash was joined by Rising Song Institute’s Joey Weisenberg, who played
music for the group.

Influenced by his late-in-life journey
to becoming a rabbi, Hoberman believes
that Jewish adults should have more
educational opportunities.

“There’s a great hunger for Jewish
education in adults,” Hoberman said.

“We often get the comment, ‘How come
they never taught us that before?!’”
For the group’s members, technology,
rather than being counter to the spirit of
the ancient Jewish tradition, has been a
helpful tool.

“One of the advantages and the rea-
son people show up is because it’s so
convenient,” Hoberman said. “The
future of Judaism has to do with it using
the technology that’s available.”
Member Jo Anne Deglin, a snow-
bird and Bala Cynwyd resident, believes
that technology has made Judaism more
accessible to Jews across generations,
though she acknowledges that there’s
been a shift in what Judaism looks like.

“It’s not the Judaism I think my
mother grew up with,” she said.

As technology opens up more oppor-
tunities for connection, conversation
and information for the beit midrash,
Deglin believes Jews should embrace
what the future holds: “All we have to do
is open the window to let it in a little bit,
and then we’ll see what’s there.” JE
srogelberg@midatlanticmedia.com JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
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