High Holy Days adapts
In pandemic, Jewish congregations adjust with masked shofar, sidewalk prayers
In a normal year, congregants at Chabad Jewish Center, 400 families in all, would fill the synagogue in Glastonbury on Rosh Hashanah. The worship service would last for hours. Then the families would sit down for a meal together. But 2020 is not a normal year.
“Normally people are very comfortable being close to each other, celebrating in close proximity, celebrating the new year together,” said Rabbi Yosef Wolvovsky of Chabad.
The coronavirus pandemic has changed how people of all faiths congregate and worship. Indoor services and close-quarters seating are out, for now. Outdoor tents, distanced family pods and multiple services to spread out the crowds are in.
To keep their members both blessed and safe for Rosh Hashanah, which begins at sunset Sept. 18 and celebrates the coming of the year 5781, synagogues in the Hartford area are adjusting their worship services.
“We’re working within crazy upsidedown parameters. We have a new saying we coined: ’In a world gone crazy, be crazy good.’ We’re trying to be crazy good, but also be legal, responsible and safe in a happy way. We hope people have a meaningful new year,” Wolvovsky said.
Every synagogue in the area is handling the pandemic differently. Randall J. Konigsburg of Beth Sholom B’nai Israel, a conservative congregation in Manchester, said a Facebook page sprang up for rabbis to share ideas about social distancing during the High Holy Days.
“You realized that rabbis all over the country were making it up as they go along. We’ve never seen anything like this before. People had no idea what to do,” Konigsburg said.
“Historically, we couldn’t look back and figure, this is what we need to do.
Pandemics in the past were deadly and they kept coming back, bubonic plague, cholera, yellow fever. Everything was canceled and people stayed home in the dark,“he said. ”Now we have Zoom. We have live streaming, Facebook live. Now we have options that were never available to the Jewish community before.”
At Chabad in Glastonbury, instead of a single service on Saturday for Rosh Hashanah, four outdoor services will be held under a tent with socially distanced seating on Saturday and Sunday, for a maximum of 65 people each. Those Chabad members who can’t make the in-person services will be visited by volunteers from the congregation, who will give them their own service, socially distanced.
“We understand that not everyone is at the same level of comfort with coming out to the tent, and that some people have to take extra precautions,” Wolvovsky said. “We have a menu of options to fit their comfort levels.”
These distanced options also will be available on Yom Kippur, which begins Sept. 27, he said. On Sunday afternoon, Chabad will hold a shofar-blowing ceremony at a pond near the Glen Lochen mall.
Elya Tsvok, former president and board member of Beit Mordechai, a Sephardic Orthodox congregation in West Hartford, said that congregation will hold all rites outdoors and in person, as it has since the beginning of the pandemic. The shofar will be blown but the community dinner will be canceled this year.
“We are a small congregation from the beginning, about 20 families. We are very careful. It’s like a family,” Tsvok said. “We will be happy if 40 people come. Everybody is scared.”
Farmington Valley Jewish Community-Emek Shalom in Simsbury is doing an all-virtual shofar blast this year, which members can access on the congregation’s website.
“The shofar is a pretty big superspreader. Traditionally, we teach kids to blow the shofar or have people blow with us. We can’t do that this year,” said Tracy Smith, president of the Reform congregation.
Smith said the congregation assembled High Holy Days “goody bags and tool kits” and distributed them to all of the 230 member families.
“They are filled with instructions about how to make your home a sanctuary, how to access our virtual programming and then traditional things like challah, apples and honey and candles to be used at home as part of the home worship,” she said.
Smith added that congregants were invited to spend a few moments, individually or in family groups, inside the sanctuary. “It’s a safe way in our sacred space, and they get to interact with the rabbi,” she said.
All of Emek Shalom’s services are available online, but those who prefer an in-person faith experience can go to one of two backto-back outdoor services in the Farmington Valley on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. “Usually we would break our fast with a Yom Kippur community meal. Sadly, that is not happening this year,” she said.
Smith would not reveal the location or times of Emek Shalom’s outdoor services, because the Jewish community has another danger to deal with. “The Union for Reform Judaism advises caution, because threats against Jewish congregations are increasing at this time,” Smith said.
Members of Temple Beth Hillel, a Reform congregation in South Windsor, will gather at a pond on Saturday afternoon for a Tashlich ritual, a symbolic casting away of sins. Those who participate will wear masks and socially distance from each other.
Jeffrey Glickman, rabbi of Temple Beth Hillel, said that temple also issued goodie bags to its congregants with High Holy Days essentials.
Beth Hillel’s Saturday and Sunday Rosh Hashanah services will be held indoors, with only 10 minyan in the sanctuary, and streamed online for the rest of the congregation. The Yom Kippur Kol Nidre service will take place outside, weather permitting, for a limited number of members. Those who are not members can park on the street, sit on the sidewalk in a chair and listen in.
The shofar will be blown throughout the High Holy Days, Glickman said, and members who want the shofar to come to their house can sign up. “If they can’t come to the synagogue, we bring the synagogue to them. It’s important to hear the shofar,” Glickman said.
Konigsburg, of Beth Sholom B’nai Israel, said his congregation sent out goodie bags, too. Theirs included a prayer that would allow members to be logged on to the computer during a period in which Jews traditionally eschew use of technology.
Konigsburg said that congregation’s national organization has worked with Zoom, to allow people to turn on the computer before the holidays and leave the computer on until all the services are finished.
“Usually Zoom lets people stay in a meeting for 24 hours only. The Zoom corporation is allowing us to stay on for 72 hours. There won’t be much to see when there aren’t services, but people won’t have to turn the computer on and off,” he said.
Rabbi Eli Ostrozynzki of the Orthodox congregation United Synagogues of Greater Hartford, which is based in West Hartford, said he will post pre-recorded services before and after the holidays, and will hold outdoor services under tents during the holidays.
“Whichever case, whatever way they want to participate. We want to feel comfortable,” he said. “From a pastoral vantage point, it’s all about being present. Wemight not physically be with the families, but wehave tried to the best of our ability to be there for the families whether it’s physically or virtually.”
Ostrozynzki will blow the shofar, safely. “I’m putting a mask at the end of my shofar,” he said.
Konigsburg said endangering lives to hold services would go directly against the tenets of Judaism. “A prime directive in Judaism is to save life. Life is precious, holy, you’re not allowed to mess with it,” he said. “Virtually everything has to stop if health is in danger.”
Wolvovsky emphasized that the faith is resilient and will endure and adapt to the present conditions.
“We have been through so many different lands, so many different circumstances and challenges that the idea we have to change the format or move the location or change the timing or offer multiple options, those ideas in and of themselves don’t faze us,” Wolvovsky said. “Safety is number one. Within the context of safety, we want people to have meaning and joy.”
Ostrozynski said “Some people might feel we are in the wilderness now, but we hope soon we will be back in the promised land.”