What little Jewish education I had when I was a kid mostly went in one ear and out the other. When I joined Shomrei in middle age, I decided to up my Jewish literacy. I attended Rabbi Greenstein’s Sunday Talmud class. I enjoyed it, but I was looking for an approach to learning that was a bit more interactive. Would Rabbi Greenstein teach me one-on-one? No, he wouldn’t do that, but he did recommend I find myself a havruta – a study partner —  through a program called Project Zug.

Project Zug matches learning partners and provides them with curricula on a wide range of topics to study together. I decided to give it a try. After answering a few questions about my educational background, level of Jewish knowledge, and particular interests, I was paired with Darcy, a Yale-educated historian who teaches high school in New York. We began our study together — meeting on Facetime — using materials purchased (for a modest fee) from Project Zug — on “Talmudic personalities” and “How to Learn Midrash.” This was in early 2020, just before the pandemic.

Before long, we decided to strike out on our own and choose our own texts. More than five years later, we are still at it, having worked our way through: all of Torah, a dozen or so books of the Prophets, and another eight or nine books of the Writings; several tractates of the Mishnah; A Maimonides Reader; and an occasional monograph on Jewish history or theology.

We meet most Sunday nights between 8 and 9pm. We make it a point to do the reading ahead of time and come to our discussions prepared – after all, we are both educators. We wrestle with the texts, ask questions, float possible answers, make connections to other works we’ve read. Sometimes we find ourselves in awe of the profundities, other times we are yucking it up at the absurdities. We push each other on, learning together in a way we never could have done on our own.