ISOLATION DIARIES

V AS MY tallit got caught in the rose bush, drawing blood as I untangled it, I knew nothing would ever be the same again. Shuls may have reopened and services are scheduled again, but an awful lot of people are not going back to synagogue because they are having far too good a time on the outside.

The roses are in my son-in-law’s front garden and I got snagged while sniffing them as we waited for a lad from round the corner who was booked to read from the Torah. Not that’s there’s anything inefficient about this street minyan. It meets three times daily, seven days a week and they don’t have to knock on doors to reach a quorum. Two to three dozen is par for the course.

One house has put up a green gazebo in its patio for the reader. The neighbours hang out over hedges and low walls, communing in the unforeseeably responsive acoustic of a suburban crescent. God must approve of the street minyan as the rain has mostly held off; when it does fall, people come out and pray regardless.

This, then, is the new normal: a shul without rav or walls, without wardens or committees, without gripes or long-held grudges or, indeed, any narrative that predates Covid. Might it be the future?

I described a crescent. This minyan serves just one side of it — actually, the upper half of one side, since people who live below a certain number have decided not to attend. No idea why. Probably because every Jew needs a shul he doesn’t go to. Over the hill, on the other side of the crescent where we don’t go, there a rumours of a different minyan. And one more in my cousin’s cul-de-sac. The crescent is a public highway and that could be a right-of-way issue. All I can report as your mole in the minyan is that over two hours of a Sabbath morning I saw just three vehicles — one Royal Mail,

First rule: Choose a quiet street and Anxiety