Even before the government announced its drastic curbs on people gathering earlier this week, coronavirus felt like something already around the corner. I have heard from two people this week who (probably) have the disease and others who know someone who has. I spoke to someone who missed his mother’s funeral because he was in isolation although he was able to watch via livestream.
Today the death toll in the UK Jewish community rose to 25 and there may be others we don’t know about.
The crisis has disrupted Jewish life in a way that would have been unimaginable to most of us. The Reform and Liberal’s movements ban on mourners attending funerals, and the United Synagogue’s restriction of attendance to immediate family without the requirement of a minyan, are unprecedented. Stepping into the ancient words of the Kaddish can be a way to channel grief but not being able to recite it because there is no minyan can leave you feeling unable to honour the memory of a parent.
But nothing demonstrates the exigency of the times more than yesterday’s decision by the Reform and Liberal mohalim not to suspend circumcision ceremonies for the time being. The brit is the primal Jewish rite – at least for boys – the mark of the covenant. Even families that feel lukewarm to much of their Jewish heritage are still pulled to the ritual of initiation as a commitment to their people.
Of course, there is nothing to stop a Progressive family seeking an Orthodox mohel – as long as the child would be considered as halachically Jewish – if they do not want to delay a brit. But now the Orthodox authorities are stripping back their ceremony to its basics, with just the immediate household and the mohel present. Somehow, the celebration with friends and family afterwards helped to dispel the tension that accompanied a difficult rite.
Communities are planning Seder plates to deliver to those who in two weeks will spend Pesach alone. The Seder meal, the one occasion above all when families should be united and no one left on their own, will this year bring home our physical separation.
A group of Sephardi rabbis in Israel, acutely aware of the loneliness of the elderly, have issued an imaginative rulling to permit the livestreaming of the Seder, as long as the camera is switched on before the festival. So far this is very much a minority opinion: whether more Orthodox rabbis will be emboldened to grant dispensations at a time of emergency remains to be seen.
But on ordinary weekdays, Orthodox communities too are streaming services and shiurim. Rabbis are turning to techno-mavens to help them create virtual community. Welcome to the era of Zoom Judaism.
