Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on March 26, 2020

Shortly after California ordered its citizens to remain at home and closed many businesses, Rabbi Shlomo Zarchi, of Congregation Chevra Thilim in San Francisco, needed to tend to the most sobering part of his vocation: He had to conduct a funeral. An elderly woman in his synagoguethe oldest Orthodox congregation in the cityhad recently died from a stroke and in keeping with Jewish custom that burial should occur within the first few days, Rabbi Zarchi helped lay her to rest last Friday before the Sabbath began at sundown. He did so only after ensuring that all mourners remained an appropriately safe distance from one another.

It was eerie. As strange as strange goes, Rabbi Zarchi recalls. It was a funeral that a lot of people wanted to come to, and I sent an email and said, The first 10 people who respond are going to be invited: Nobody can come without a confirmation from me.

That number10is important. Its the minimum number of adult males (older than 13) that need to be present to form a minyan: the quorum required for communal worship in Judaism. (Conservative and Reform Judaism allow women to be part of a minyan, but Orthodox Judaism does not.) Without a minyan, several treasured prayers, services and rituals cannot be held. In this case, Rabbi Zarchi had the necessary attendance to complete the funeral rites, including reciting kaddishthe mourners prayer.

But Rabbi Zarchi, 46, knows he may soon be unable to get 10 adult males together for a minyan, and he understands better than most about the tests of faith that await in the coming weeks: The coronavirus has already infected part of his family back home in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.

I have brothers and sisters whove had fevers now for a week, he says. So I am talking to them every single day.

COVID-19 is shaking the foundations of everyday life, and no religion possesses a special immunity. The Church of England has ordered its clergy to close parish doors and livestream services. Pope Francis now broadcasts daily mass and otherliturgies from a private library deep within Vatican Citys thick walls rather than the traditional perch overlooking St. Peters Square. Saudi Arabia banned people from completing Islams holiest act: the pilgrimage to Mecca known as the hajj. Here in America, churches are empty, and congregations are preparing for a livestreamed Easter three weeks from now.

Let Us Pray: Pope Francis waves to an empty St. Peter's square after livestreaming a service from the Vatican.

Given a minyans function, however, Judaism faces a special challenge and coronavirus restrictions have reignited the ancient debate over the definition of that prayer requirement, whose origin can be traced to the Bible. (Minyan is Hebrew for count or number and is sourced back to several verses, including Numbers 14:27 in which Moses sent spies to scout Canaan.)

Today, rabbis are grappling with whether streaming technology such as Zoom, Google Hangouts, Facebook Live and similar social media can constitute a minyan as social distancing mandates keep people apart.

Since Judaism lacks a central authorityunlike how the Vatican governs the Catholic Church, for examplerabbis around the world are debating and rethinking what constitutes a minyan. A virtual minyan would allow them to not only complete parts of ordinary daily and weekly services but also important rituals such as funerals and shiva, the seven-day period of mourning in which kaddish is recited three times a day. And it is a cruel but pressing reality that death will hover over life more in the coming weeks.

Counting Blessings: Wilshire Boulevard Temple in L.A. has embraced virtual services.

The debate over what constitutes a minyan is not new. For several millennia, the law was clear10 adult Jewish males. Then, in the 1800s, a more liberal movement began among German Jews, laying the foundation for Reform Judaism. Historians disagree on exactly when, but by the end of that century, adult women were allowed to be part a minyan.

It took nearly another century for Conservative rabbis to expand the rules concerning a minyan. In 1973, a proclamation came from the Rabbinical Assemblya group as close to a central authority as there is for Conservativesencouraging rabbis to start allowing women in a minyan. The announcement was a big enough deal to land on the New York Times front page. The paper described it as a radical break from rabbinical tradition. It was, in fact, nothing short of a revolution, the groups president, Rabbi Judah Nadich, told the Times.

As with most other religions, Judaism took a cautious approach to the online revolution that begun in the 1990s. Over the last decade, it has become common for synagogues to livestream services and maintain active Facebook Groups and Twitter accounts. Central Synagogue, a Reform temple in Manhattan, for example, now devotes an entire section of its website to accessing its livestream and other uploaded devotional content. Yet as recently as 2018 there was no online version of the TalmudJewish oral law handed down over centuriesand on-going debates about whether observant Jews should text on the Sabbath.

A virtual minyan is the next frontier, one that no rabbi would have predicted needed to be addressed this year. Unsurprisingly, Reform clergy are unfazed by the prospect of expanding virtual prayer. Were using Zoom, using Google Hangouts, using Facebook, says Rabbi Steve Leder, who leads one of Los Angeles largest synagogues, Wilshire Boulevard Temple. I have engaged in this kind of media before. But now this crisis has forced me to become much more comfortable and familiar with itits like I just discovered electricity. Hes comfortable with both Google Hangouts and Zoom for minyans and has some blunt words for the unconverted among his fellow rabbis. They need to get over it, he says. These are extraordinary times.

Of course that is easier said than done, even for moderate Conservative Jews. The Rabbinical Assembly made a public proclamation last week that a virtual minyan was acceptable during the coronavirus epidemic. But Conservative rabbis dont have to follow what the Assembly says.

I want to retain the concept of a minyan as a group of people who, by definition, are in physical proximity to one another, says Rabbi David Schuck. I don't want to expand that.

Rabbi Robert Scheinberg of United Synagogue in Hoboken, New Jersey, has had more time to think about virtual worship than others. His Conservative congregation just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, has been on lockdown for more than week (the city was one of the first in the nation to institute a curfew and tell its citizens to stay inside). Rabbi Scheinberg is now broadcasting his services using a Google Nest camera but skipping over the parts in the Sabbath rites that would require a minyan, which include reading from the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament. He will, however, recite kaddish during daily Zoom prayer meetings, allowing grieving members of his congregation to follow tradition. (Kaddish is customarily recited daily for a month following the death of a child, spouse or sibling. For a parent, 11 months.)

Grave Concern: If 10 people cannot say kaddish together, what will happen to Jewish funerals?

In nearby New Rochelle, New York, one of the first American towns affected by the coronavirus, Rabbi David Schuck who leads the Conservative congregation at Beth El Synagogue, feels differently. He will not recite kaddish unless a minyan is present, and like Rabbi Scheinberg, will skip parts of his service that require one. I want to retain the concept of a minyan as a group of people who, by definition, are in physical proximity to one another, he says. I don't want to expand that. He is instead dedicating his Zoom Torah study sessions to specific worshipers, a way, he says, for his congregation to honor the deceased.

Rabbi Daniel Greyber, of Beth El Synagogue in Durham, North Carolina, has yet another perspective on remote worship. He sees Zoom as an acceptable technology for establishing a minyan since everyone can see each others faces and participatebut nine people on video and one on audio only is not acceptable, he says. Faces are vital: Everyone needs to see one another. (Rabbi Greyber also draws the line at Facebook Live, which would only show him but not everyone else.) People are trying a lot of different things, he says. I felt a little bit overwhelmed trying to pull it together.

As for Orthodox Jews, the view on virtual minyans remains stark. That would not really work, says Rabbi Yisrael Motzen, leader of Ner Tamid synagogue in Baltimore. The same goes for virtual services. That doesnt really qualify, he says. Similar to many rabbis, Rabbi Motzen will conduct Torah study through Zoom, and he hopes that will keep his congregation connected in the coming weeksparticularly for beginning of Passover on April 8. Technology is certainly part of our lifestyle, says Motzen, who likes to turn his sermons into podcasts that are published on Apple and Spotify. The pace of innovation that we have to navigate is quite, quite unique.

And despite grim projections of illness and mortality rates, those who oppose a virtual minyan are unlikely to relent on their stance, even for funerals. Do I need to tell you how many times people were buried without a minyan in times of war or in times of plague? asks Rabbi Zarchi in San Francisco. We'll do kaddish at the appropriate time when we can gather togetherat a different time. But now is not that time.

See the article here:

Virtual Prayer: How Synagogues Are WorshippingAnd Conducting FuneralsIn The Coronavirus Age - Forbes

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