3 min read
ByYoni Birnbaum, Yoni Birnbaum
'The facilities which faith communities offer are not luxuries. They are essential, frontline services, which provide a lifeline of spiritual and often physical support, particularly during difficult times.'
October 13, 2020 14:19A particularly wonderful Israeli phrase is acharei hachagim, literally translated as, “after the festivals”. This innocuous phrase is liberally applied to any situation one would prefer not to deal with now. “After Yomtov, I’ll get to it”. Of course, people start to get a little suspicious when the phrase is used soon after Pesach — with Succot in mind. Sometimes, acharei hachagim never arrives.
In many communities, there has been a strong sense of acharei hachagim about the past few months. Focusing on how to navigate the High Holydays under Covid-regulations left little time to consider how shuls might function after Yomtov was over. Yet Boris Johnson’s depressing announcement that social distancing regulations may well have to last another six months should galvanise us into putting together a meaningful long-term plan for the winter months.
Personally, I found it significant that the prime minister emphasised in his address to Parliament on September 22 that people should draw comfort from the fact that houses of worship could remain open. Assuming (and this is a big assumption), that this remains the government position, I see in this a measure of trust being placed on communal leaders. Take responsibility for your buildings, make sure that they operate in a Covid-secure way and they can stay open. Do the opposite, however, and they may need to be closed, both for the safety of their attendees as well as wider society.
So, shuls will need to tread a very fine line going forward. As always, there will be extreme examples in both directions. There will, sadly, be examples of communities that are lax in ensuring that their facilities are Covid-secure, or that the relevant regulations are followed. This is obviously dangerous from a health and safety perspective, as well as irresponsible in the sense of abusing the trust placed upon houses of worship by the Government. If we want our communal buildings to stay open, we need to continuously demonstrate that they are safe.
But there will also be extreme examples in the opposite direction. There will be examples of communities which are too hesitant to open their doors in any meaningful way or provide as full a service as possible for their members. Communities which restrict every possible avenue for the resumption of communal life. But this attitude is also wrong. The facilities which faith communities offer are not luxuries. They are essential, frontline services, which provide a lifeline of spiritual and often physical support, particularly during difficult times. That is exactly why the Government has allowed them to remain open.
And, while it is true that some of this can be provided online, the comfort and solace derived from the physical interaction with other people sharing a communal space is indescribable. This is particularly true, of course, for the lonely, the recently bereaved, and those in crisis. But it is also true of most people during times of uncertainty and stress. The greater the national concerns and worries, the more essential the physical services of a faith community become. They ground people in a sense of normality when all seems so abnormal, they ensure stability in an unstable world and they provide a place that people can look to as a pathway back towards a more familiar and friendly world.
That is why, like all difficult dilemmas in life, simply erring on the side of caution until things blow over, remaining inactive until the period of acharei hachagim arrives, is simply not a viable option. Difficult decisions on the continued reopening and expansion of communal services need to be made now, because people need those services now. Families need a safe way for their children to re-engage with shul life, so that it complements their Jewish education in school. The elderly, vulnerable and those living alone, need, somehow, to find a way to re-access the services which meant so much to them before the pandemic. Perhaps children’s services need to happen at a different time of day? Perhaps shuls need to put on even more enhanced socially distant events designed specifically for vulnerable individuals who are desperate to return to shul but cannot join the main services on offer.
These ideas are not meant to be prescriptive, of course. But the simple truth is that acharei hachagim has now arrived, both literally and figuratively. And our shuls and community centres now need to re-open communal services to the maximum that is safely possible. This may indeed be an incredibly fine line to tread. But that fine line is the only possible viable route, from a communal perspective, out of this pandemic.
Rabbi Yoni Birnbaum is rabbi of Kehillas Toras Chaim, Hendon
