Frank 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 different places and attend services in different 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 Saturday morning.
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 understand 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 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 Hoffman, 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,” Hoffman 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. Hoffman 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 first time since 2019. Hoffman 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.” ■
