‘Beloved and pleasant in their lives’

On February 28, the last of my four chevrutah colleagues passed away.

For 38 years, every Shabbat afternoon I met with my friends and learning colleagues for one and a half hours before the mincha service to learn Talmud. They were Dr. Arthur Helft, Dr. Walter Berkowitz, Dr. Michael Harris and Mr. Paul Herman.

As defined by Wikipedia, a chevrutah is “a traditional, Jewish method of collaborative, partnered text study, originating from the Aramaic word for ‘friendship’ or ‘companionship.’ It involves reading and debating classical Jewish texts together, often out loud, to foster deeper understanding, personal growth, and close collaborative relationships.”

Our chevrutah accomplished all those things.

I was introduced to Talmud 72 years ago by Mr. Kushner, my kindly seventh-grade Hebrew teacher in Yeshiva Rambam, a few blocks from my home in Brooklyn. We learned Hamafkid, a talmudic chapter traditionally used to open the minds of young boys — there were no girls in my class — to the intricacies of Gemarrah. It dealt with the laws of bailees and guarding items, which I found far less interesting than the Brooklyn Dodgers.

After graduating from Rambam, I continued my schooling at Brooklyn Talmudical Academy, more familiarly known as BTA. After my first two years, I found it increasingly difficult to immerse myself in Talmud, and after graduating high school, I went on a 27-year talmudic sabbatical, during which time I did not look at a single page of Talmud. For reasons still unknown, and quite insidiously, I developed Talmud-withdrawal syndrome in 1987.

By then I was living in Englewood and a member of Congregation Ahavath Torah, when, after Shabbat services, I approached my friend Dr. Arthur Helft and asked him if he would like to study Talmud with me. Arthur told me that he and our mutual friends, Drs. Michael Harris and Walter Berkowitz, had just started a chevrutah and I would be most welcome to join.

And so I was accepted into this august group of middle-aged learners. Little did I know that this would be the start of a wonderful 38-year collaboration that deepened our friendship and that of our families. For all these years, we would meet every Shabbat, rotating our meeting places in our homes and sharing as well who would be the teacher — the maggid shiur — who was expected to prepare the day’s learning and bring with him whatever ancillary sources that would entertain, clarify, and provide context for the topic at hand. I soon realized that the Talmud’s wisdom and profundity, which was not apparent to an 11-year-old Brooklyn boy, was obvious to a 44-year-old adult.

About 20 years ago, we had a request from a lawyer, Paul Herman, to join our group. After conducting a thorough background check of Paul, we decided that in the diversity spirit of the times, we would allow a non-physician to join. It was a wise decision.

Our unwritten bylaws stated that a shiur would be canceled if fewer than three members were present. This rarely occurred. When we started in 1987, there was no ArtScroll Talmud translation and explication into English. We relied on the Steinsaltz Talmud edition, which explained the Talmud in Hebrew. We also made use of “the tape man.” You could purchase explanatory tapes, in English, of the entire Talmud. For a particularly difficult sugya, or unit of discussion, our maggid shiur could obtain a tape recording by a Talmud scholar whom we affectionately referred to as the “tape man.”

Listening to this recording during the week before our Shabbat sessions enabled the maggid shiur to teach us with confidence and expertise. When ArtScroll began to publish its English translation of the Talmud in 1990, we started to use it as a supplement to Steinsaltz. ArtScroll gave clear and detailed explanations, eliminating the need for a tape man, and Steinsaltz enabled us to sharpen our Hebrew while providing enlightening comments about the historical context of the issues we were learning, as well as archaeological, etymologic, and halachic observations.

Our first tractate was Sukkot. Over the years we completed eight and a half more tractates. In contrast to the very popular Daf Yomi groups, which learn a complete two-sided page of the Babylonian Talmud every day, racing through all 2,711 pages in 7.5 years, our chevrutah met once a week — occasionally more often during Jewish holidays — and were looking forward to completing the entire Talmud at our pace in 232 years.

A word about our backgrounds: Dr. Helft, a general surgeon, was raised in Brooklyn and attended Yeshiva Flatbush through high school. When he was our maggid shiur, Arthur loved to bring multiple tomes to our sessions with sources from the Bible, various commentaries, and relevant secular sources. Arthur was the consummate joke teller, and in his deadpan manner he would enliven our learning with very funny jokes related to the topic at hand.

Our chevrutah wives would often comment on the laughter emanating from our study table, wondering how such dry, legalistic content could give rise to racous hilarity. Surprisingly, we soon learned that some of the homiletic narratives—the aggditah—in the Talmud reflected a wry sense of humor of our sages. Arthur even published a compendium of these stories, available on Amazon.

Dr. Harris, a pediatric oncologist and former director of the Hackensack Meridian Children’s Cancer Institute, grew up in Far Rockaway, attended the Hebrew Institute of Long Island’s elementary school and Manhattan Talmudical Academy High School. Michael brought a sharp intellect to our learning sessions and was the creator of the “Harris Rule,” which was often invoked during our sometimes heated discussions: Do not engage in endless detailed debates about a complex legal issue until reaching the end of the of the talmudic discussion of the matter.

Dr. Berkowitz, our cardiologist, attended Ramaz elementary school. He more than made up for his lack of high school yeshiva education with his passion for learning. Walter, like Arthur, would often bring multiple texts to our shiurim when he was maggid shiur. He loved to delve deeply into whatever byways the topic we were learning led to.

Paul Herman, an estate attorney who grew up in Brooklyn, had no formal yeshiva education but acquired his Jewish learning from Hebrew school. Paul’s enthusiasm for Jewish knowledge was evident at our sessions. He had a steel trap memory and would remind us years after learning a particular topic of its relevance to the matter at hand. Paul was always right. In addition, he educated us about the parallels in current secular laws to laws enacted millennia ago by the rabbis of the Talmud.

It is no exaggeration to say that our chevrutah enriched our lives over almost four decades, both intellectually and socially. I suppose it was equivalent to the proverbial boys’ night out. But instead of bonding over playing poker, going bowling, or watching football, our deep connection consisted of delving into the intricacies and wisdom of a document written over a 500-year period going back 1,500 to 2,000 years. We would celebrate the completion of a masechta at a party — a siyum — at one of our homes. Our chevrutah also led to our wives drawing closer over the years, thanks to our social gatherings and the shared weekly experiences of their husbands. Could the Psalmist have had chevrutot in mind when singing Psalm 133 —See how pleasant it is when brothers sit together

But all good things must come to an end.

Over the past seven years my friends and learning colleagues have all passed away. Arthur died in the fall of 2019 and Paul in the spring of 2024. Walter, Michael, and I continued our chevrutah. Then, in March 2025, my wife passed away. The day I got up from shiva, I attended Michael’s funeral and was privileged to recite the Kel Malech Rachamim. Upon reaching the Ahavath Torah cemetery to attend Michael’s burial, I was taken aback when I saw that his grave was adjacent to that of Jeannie, my wife, whose burial was a week before.

Almost exactly one year later, Walter passed away, the day before Jeannie’s yahrzeit. I returned from Jeannie’s unveiling just in time to attend Walter’s funeral where once again I chanted the Kel Male Rachamim. All my chevrutah are close together in the Ahavath Torah cemetery. Again, a passage from the Tanach is so relevant. This is Samuel 1:23, David’s lament for Saul and Jonathan after their deaths:

“They were beloved and pleasant in their lives, and in their deaths they were not divided.”

Dr. Kenneth Prager is a pulmonologist and medical ethicist. He lives in Englewood.