Trading places, Jewishly
Image by Fred Bernstein
Most Saturday afternoons, at around 3:00, I sit on a bench across the street from my apartment waiting for a friend to join me (masked, of course, and at a distance of at least six feet).
My friend is Orthodox, and for most of her life she has taken Shabbat afternoon walks. These days I have the good fortune to live along her route. In the early days of the pandemic, when I rarely left my apartment, meeting her on the bench was a rare bright spot. We would sit for an hour or more, talking about our children (all going through difficult lockdown transitions), our shared professional interests and current events.
For years, Shira’s walks were part of a Shabbat routine that included three or four hours in shul. There, her family — her husband and sons — were on the other side of a mechitza. (I’ve wondered if, as an Orthodox woman, she had hoped for a daughter, so davening wouldn’t separate her from her entire family. I’ll ask her next Saturday when we’re together on our bench.)
For years, I had spent only occasional Shabbat mornings at my shul, a progressive congregation in Park Slope called Kolot Chayeinu, or Voices of Our Lives. I went when I felt like it, which wasn’t often, because getting there is hard for me (I have Parkinson’s disease), and sitting for three hours isn’t easy either (even when I was healthy, I tended to have shpilkes). And while showing up late seemed to be acceptable, leaving early wasn’t. Which meant it was the whole morning, or nothing.
Covid-19 changed everything. Shira hasn’t been to Shabbat services in seven months. Ironically, I have rarely missed a service (via Zoom) since March.
Yes, the irony of the pandemic is that my Orthodox friend has been cut off from her synagogue while I, an agnostic who joined one mainly so my sons could become b’nai mitzvah, have never felt more connected to Jewish community.
Obviously, Zoom gives me a lot of freedom. With my camera off, I can attend services in bed, or get up and have breakfast without being seen or heard. I can check my email while I should be reciting the Amidah. I’m not proud that I open other windows during Shabbat services, but on balance I’m getting a lot more Judaism now than before Covid-19 changed everything.
There are many other reasons why Zoom works well for me.
With a terrible memory, I’m often embarrassed at the real shul when someone says “Shabbat shalom, Fred,” and can’t think of the person’s name. The embarrassment can preoccupy me when I should be thinking Shabbos-y thoughts. But on Zoom, I am actually learning many congregants’ names for the first time.
Then there’s the embarrassment I feel in shul because I can’t read Hebrew well enough to keep up, and because I mangle melodies. (No such embarrassment on Zoom.)
In addition to my faulty memory, my lack of Hebrew, and my inability to carry a tune, my hearing isn’t great, and when there is murmuring around me in shul I can’t always make out the voices on the bimah. That doesn’t happen on Zoom.
But services aren’t just more convenient on Zoom. In many ways, they are better. And that’s because our rabbi, Miriam Grossman, and our cantor, Lisa B. Segal, have embraced the possibilities of the medium as Jews have embraced new possibilities and new constraints for centuries.
They have chosen to conduct services from their homes, where they are surrounded by ritual objects and loved ones. The feeling is one of shared intimacy. I know some rabbis who have chosen to Zoom Shabbat services from bimahs in otherwise empty sanctuaries. Their congregants may enjoy seeing the familiar backdrops — and Torah scrolls — but I’d find it hard not to focus on the rows of empty pews.
And from their homes, they have invented new traditions.
Here are a few of them:
During the portion of each service called the Hoda’ah, the rabbi asks people to name some things they’re grateful for. With the “chat” turned on, and with 100 or more people typing at once, reasons for gratitude scroll by in startling profusion. That in itself is powerful. Then, as the words disappear at the top of the screen, they seem to be rising to heaven. Sometimes the rabbi or cantor chooses a few people to speak about their gratitude on camera. (It helps that there’s a technical person who can mute and unmute congregants on cue.) Each week, I’m moved by the variety of things that make folks grateful.
The chat works well for the misheberach, the healing prayers, with congregants listing names of those whose recovery they’re praying for. And of course it works for the mourner’s kaddish. In both cases, congregants who might be self-conscious calling out names of loved ones in synagogue seem comfortable typing them into the Zoom chat, where the names have at least a fleeting physical presence. The private chat function lets people support and console each other directly.
Our founding Rabbi, Ellen Lippmann, had a magnificent tradition of giving one aliyah each week to a group of people who identify with an issue/concern/theme raised by the Torah portion. For example, “This aliyah is for anyone who has ever felt like a pariah” (Ellen would have put it far more eloquently). But not everyone who has had that feeling wants to announce it to the congregation. On Zoom, private thoughts can remain private.
Making music together is one area where our cantor has really had to innovate. A program called acapella allows her to harmonize with other members of the congregation, or, memorably, with other versions of herself.
Congregants have been remarkably resourceful when it comes to ways of using the small screen. Dancer/choreographer Hadar Ahuvia and her partner, puppeteer Rowan Magee, created a film that tells the story of Sarah and Hagar with astonishingly simple imagery. It’s something that wouldn’t have worked in person because our shul lacks video equipment. The film can now be shared around the world.
And don’t think there isn’t schmoozing. The rabbi and cantor have learned to keep the Zoom gathering going, and let participants unmute themselves, for 15 or 20 minutes after Kiddush. And sometimes the synagogue’s “control room” will give each person or family a few seconds to wave and blow kisses or otherwise mug on what we call the Jumbotron screen.
Overall, services have been more participatory than ever, thanks to our clergy and their willingness to experiment with new technology.
I feel bad that Shira can’t experience these things, but until it’s safe for large groups to gather in person, she and her family will have very little contact with their shul. In the meantime, it’s as if we’ve traded places; I can’t get enough of mine.
Fred Bernstein studied law (at NYU) and architecture (at Princeton) and writes about both subjects. He has published more than 500 articles in the New York Times and hundreds more in other publications.
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