The Federation of Synagogues has issued guidance for Purim to ensure celebrations of the festival later this month comply with social distancing rules.
Urging vigilance in the face of the continuing threat of the virus, the organisation’s religious head Rabbi Shraga Feivel Zimmerman acknowledged that last year’s celebrations “appear in retrospect to have inadvertently been, in many instances, events that caused the spread of the virus to a great number of people”.
He recommended that communities hold a number of readings of the Megillah to enable everyone to safely hear it.
Children should not go around houses spieling (performing comic sketches) as would traditionally be the case. Instead, virtual spiels will be made for schools and other institutions to raise funds.
The Federation warned that despite the vaccine roll-out, the virus remained “a clear and present danger”.
It was a “halachic imperative” to be vigilant to ensure that “we will not be the cause of illness” by spreading it, Rabbi Zimmerman stressed.
Noting the government’s recognition of the importance of communal prayer by allowing places of worship to remain open, he said adherence to social distancing rules was “not only essential for our own health and safety but also to ensure that we do not give cause for the authorities to reconsider this dispensation”.
While it was important to rejoice on Purim in God’s “salvation from seemingly unavoidable danger,” he said it was “vital to bear in mind that over the last year, the virus has wreaked devastation upon many people’s lives, with the death of friends and relatives, loss of jobs and income, irreplaceable loss of months of schooling, and the accompanying toll on the mental health and wellbeing ,not just of members of our own kehilloh [community] but also of people across the country.”
Rabbi Zimmerman added: “We must therefore be vigilant to ensure that our festivities do not in any way give rise to the impression that we do not care about our own health or the health of those among whom we live.”
