I am writing this on Motzoei Shabbos in Teverya. Normally, by Thursday I’ve already sent in my article, and by Monday it’s edited, proofed, and ready for the presses. But this week, I asked the editors to hold off. Something happened that I simply could not let pass without sharing.
I had traveled to join a chaburah of about 150 chevrah, many of them the familiar faces I see almost every day on the Lakewood Daf Yomi Zoom shiur led by the incomparable Reb Sruly Bornstein. We were gathering for a few days and a Shabbos to celebrate a belated siyum on Seder Nezikin. I could not attend the entire week-long yarchei kallah, but I did make it for the siyum, graced by Rav Dovid Cohen, rosh yeshivas Chevron. For that alone, the trip was worth it.
There were so many beautiful moments. Of course, the davening, divrei Torah, conversations that somehow only happen when you meet someone in person, and the simple joy of finally seeing in person many of the “little squares” that appear each time the shiur is available on a Zoom screen. But instead of going through the many varied nuances of the actual days in Eretz Yisroel, I want to describe what struck me most. It is something subtle, something I never expected, but in essence it relates to what it means to truly be part of a chaburah.
My connection to this group began during Covid. Before the pandemic. Before that, I understand that the shiur was originally delivered around a simple table in a shul basement. Then the world shut down. Like the rest of the Olam HaTorah, at least on an elementary school level, our yeshiva closed. I found myself cut off from my talmidim, from my regular learning environment, from the rhythm of life that had sustained me for decades. Someone mentioned that this Lakewood Daf Yomi shiur was available on Zoom and felt that I would be enamored by it. Enamored is too weak of a verb. I was hooked.
I once heard in the name of a gadol that although Czar Nicholas believed that he built the Trans-Siberian Railroad for his own empire, Hashem had engineered it to one day save the Mirrer Yeshiva as they escaped to Japan. In a similar way, I felt that Hashem had placed Zoom in the world to connect people who otherwise could never sit around the same table. For me, at that moment, it became a lifeline.
And then came the shiur itself. Reb Sruly’s brilliance is known to anyone who listens: clarity without shortcuts that entails a level of depth not normally heard in a Daf Yomi shiur presented for the masses. It’s a real shiur. No gimmicks, no visuals, just Torah, presented with a purity that captivated me from the first day. The almost daily Reid Bites that delve into any sugya or even aggadeta transport me back to the chakiros and lomdus and even the machshavah that formed me in my years in the halls of the greatest yeshivos and beyond. Slowly, the Lakewood Daf Yomi chaburah became more than a shiur. It became something I looked forward to — not just for the Torah, but for the sense of belonging I didn’t realize I was missing.
That is where the subtle gift of a chaburah began to unfold. Everyone has friends, neighbors, even chavrusos. But a chaburah is different. A real chaburah opens you up. It pulls you beyond the borders of your own daled amos and introduces you to new voices, new minds, new perspectives in Torah. Before I joined, my learning world was mostly my chavrusos, my keyboard, and the seforim on my desk (and some on Otzar Hachochmah). But suddenly, through this shiur, I found myself talking in learning with people across America and beyond. Men I never would have met became daily companions. Yungeleit whose names I didn’t recognize became yedidim.
The ability to hear shiurim on any part of Shas, from maggidei shiur whose voices have become familiar and beloved, has transformed my learning. Besides the Daf, the chance to revisit difficult sugyos I’m learning on my own — like the Taharos sugyos at the end of Chagigah (which the Oraysa members will appreciate) — turns a late-night seder into a different experience entirely. When the basic pshat is delivered with clarity, the mind has space not only to chazer the amud, but to explore a difficult Tosafos or a nuanced Rishon.
But the Torah itself is only part of it. There is another dimension that cannot be felt from recordings alone: the Zoom community. The questions, the back-and-forth, the pilpul chaveirim, the sense that you are learning as part of something larger than yourself. Imagine handeling a Rav Chaim or even a simple shakla vetarya with someone who was a total stranger yesterday and today has become a yedid ne’eman. What kind of gift is that?
Kibbutz goluyos is not only about gathering people on eagle’s wings and bringing them to Eretz Yisroel. The deeper kibbutz of Klal Yisroel is the bond created through Torah — the way learning becomes a bridge between neshamos who otherwise would never have met.
I have found myself calling members of the chaburah or yungeleit in Lakewood who were quoted in the shiur just to clarify a point or ask a question on a sevara they offered. Everyone has their circle. But the opportunity to step beyond it, to spread your wings, to learn and connect with people you never imagined speaking to is something truly special.
And to finally spend a few days together, face to face, with those Torah enthusiasts who were once just tiny images on a screen and now sit across a table discussing the sugya with passion and warmth — that is something I will never take for granted.
It leaves me with a deep hakoras hatov to the maggid shiur, whose vision, innovation, and pure love of Torah have transformed so many lives, including mine.
Just Saying.
