Of the 15 participants in his “Introduction to Talmud” online course last fall, Reuven Cohn was pleased to welcome Ammiel Prochovnick among his returning students. A retired science librarian from the University of Chicago, Prochovnick was an avid participant who contributed many enthusiastic and insightful comments in class discussions. “He would compliment my teaching, and also let me know if a topic was less necessary—all in a charming way,” says Cohn, Adjunct Instructor in Rabbinics.

So when Cohn received an email in November from Prochovnick that he would no longer be able to actively participate in the course due to a serious medical condition, he immediately wrote back expressing his concern. A few days later, Cohn learned from Prochovnick’s daughter, Ora, that her father had died—within hours of their email exchange. In an email correspondence, she shared details about her father and the worlds he had occupied in cyberspace and at home. Unbeknownst to anyone in the class, Prochovnick, 78, had been housebound by a nervous system disease for the last nine years of his life. His main connection to the outside world was through the Internet.

“My dad craved intellectual stimulation, as well as nurturance of his strong connection to Judaism,” Ora wrote Cohn. “Many of these needs were satisfied through the online courses in which he was able to participate. He particularly valued the classes he took with you.”

Cohn informed his class of Prochovnick’s death in a posting and created a discussion board, “Mourning in Cyberspace.” “Who knew,” he says, “that one of the benefits of a cyberspace course is that it would enable a person to be intellectually vibrant almost until the moment of death. I cannot believe how hard this hit me—about someone I had never even met in person!”

Students were also deeply affected by their classmate’s passing. Anita Redner Me’ah’01, MJEd’07, JSpEd Cert’07 comments, “The experience of getting to know [him], then losing our friend and classmate, Ammiel, brought our Talmud class together in a very profound way.” Jan Timmons MAJS’08, who had taken classes with Prochovnick before, found the most sobering realization of the experience that “Ammiel was no longer just an intellectual in cyberspace. Through him, we all became more ‘real.’ And I think we all felt as though we had lost someone we ‘knew’ in at least a small way.”

During the shloshim (end of the first 30 days of mourning) in December, Cohn led a study class in Prochovnick’s memory at Congregation Shaar Zahav in San Francisco, where Ora Provichovnick is currently President. There, Cohn commented that if Ammiel walked into the room at that moment, the congregation might be shocked—yet Cohn, himself, would not even recognize him. “When we studied together, I didn’t know he had this disability, and it didn’t matter,” says Cohn. “There is no place for that information in online learning. He was able to live his life to the fullest to the very end.”




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