Virus upends traditional Rosh Hashana services
Dramatically shorter worship services. No sermons. Huge outdoor tents. Excitement that technology is enlivening and making more intimate an ancient Jewish holiday. Despair that technology is sucking the life out of an ancient Jewish holiday.
The High Holidays, which began Friday night with Rosh Hashana, are the latest tradition to be upended by the novel coronavirus pandemic. According to the somber, introspective liturgy, this is the period when God decides who will live and who will die, when Jews are commanded to look hard at their own mortality and to make amends. It is the time of the year that draws more Jews to the synagogue than any other.
Six months of social distancing, on top of racial, economic and political turmoil, has many desperately wanting community, encouragement and spiritual nourishment this year. The virus has forced Jewish leaders to be creative in responding to that need.
Most Jewish communities in the Washington region are conservative about in-person gatherings, and the majority of synagogues remain closed, with beefed-up services online, according to the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington. A handful — especially those serving more traditionally observant Jews — have created intricate sign-up sheets and rented hotel courtyards and ballrooms to allow properly spaced, in-person groups.
Before the pandemic, Kol Ami Reconstructionist synagogue in Arlington, Va., hosted three prayer services a month.
Now, operating via Zoom, congregants want more, and there are five services a week, said Rabbi Gilah Langner, who indicated that she is optimistic about online services for the holidays. Ohr Kodesh in Chevy Chase, Md., shifted from its usual few weeks of High Holiday programming to two full months.
“We started putting together a ‘design thinking’ approach,” said Hannah Olson, chair of the synagogue’s High Holiday Task Force, using a trendy term for inventors and consultants and others being open and user-centered in tackling problems. The task force found that people love the High Holidays — which end 10 days after Rosh Hashana with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement — in part for the spontaneous interactions at synagogue with people they only see a few times a year.
“So how do we meet those needs? Let’s give people lots of opportunities to ‘run into’ someone,” Olson said of the daily emails Ohr Kodesh has been sending with a bit of scripture learning, cooking programs and games.
Many institutions have found new ways to share in the blowing of the shofar, the hollowed-out ram’s horn that is sounded on Rosh Hashana, at the end of Yom Kippur, and every day at services during the month leading up to the holidays.
Some communities are teaching extra congregants how to blow the twisty, long horn, so that it will cut down on the number of gatherings, or placing masks over the cover to limit the spray of germs. Others in D.C., Chicago, New York City and other spots have planned citywide shofar-blows from rooftops, parks or front lawns.
Sometimes the shofar-hearing is virtual. That’s the case for students at Berman Hebrew Academy in Rockville, Md., who choose to do their required morning prayers by Zoom. Each morning for a month, they have watched and listened to Chanokh Berenson, the science department chair, sounding the instrument from his Silver Spring, Md., apartment.
For congregants, the decision of whether to log on for Rosh Hashana services Friday night, Saturday or Sunday is only one of the adjustments for the holiday this year. Visits from family have been severely curtailed, holiday dinners with guests are safer if held outside, and college students are wary of returning home from campus for fear of bringing the coronavirus with them.
Joel Rubin, who was Jewish outreach director for former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, has three daughters and normally goes with his family to a synagogue in Northwest D.C. This year, he said, their holiday will be on Zoom. The family will eat a traditional “sweet year” food of apples and honey, say some blessings, fast on Yom Kippur, and, he predicts, have a “very individual” experience. He’s worried about the impact, especially for those who only connect with Jewish life once or twice a year.
“These aren’t replaceable events. These are life experiences that are temporal,” Rubin said. “For me there’s a fear of a disconnect from the community. We’re holding on by our fingernails to the infrastructure that helps us to be able to practice and promote Judaism for us and our families. Maybe we can get away with it once.”