Jewish Passover celebrations have extra meaning when families aren’t free to gather
Jewish families across the Triangle are figuring out how to celebrate Passover — the annual reenactment of their freedom from slavery — while the threat of coronavirus has them trapped at home.
Some will mark the holiday in prayerful seclusion. They’ll enjoy a Seder meal on Wednesday night with only the members of their household instead of the extended family and friends who might have joined if not for the risk of contracting or spreading COVID-19.
Others will try an electronic expansion of the Seder, inviting all who are hungry to come and eat virtually, sharing the experience through video conferencing apps. That requires making a significant exception to the Jewish practice of retreating from modern distractions such as computers and mobile phones on holy days.
This Passover, electronic devices that ordinarily are viewed as a hindrance to human bonding will be for some the key to it.
“Under these circumstances, some of the rules have had to go out the window in a sense,” said Rabbi Eric Solomon of Beth Meyer Synagogue in Raleigh.
Normally he and his wife, Rabbi Jennifer Solomon, host a community Passover Seder at the synagogue that would draw 150 to 200 members of the congregation. They would share the rituals of prayer, reading the Haggadah and taking the symbolic food and drink that bring alive the scriptures’ story of the Israelites’ enslavement in Egypt and God’s use of the 10 plagues to liberate them.
Not this year.
Under Governor Roy Cooper’s orders, gatherings of 10 or more people have been banned, making it impossible for a community Seder on one of the most important holidays in the Jewish calendar.
Instead, the Solomons will host a Zoom Seder, where they hope to see at least as many congregants, maybe more.
A congregation goes virtual
Like other religious faiths that have moved their worship and study practices from sanctuaries to laptop screens during the pandemic, the congregation of Beth Meyer has had to learn some new skills. More technologically savvy members have been coaching less adroit ones on how to participate in virtual events. After one of their Zoom sessions was “bombed” by uninvited guests who made anti-Semitic comments, organizers tightened security and moved to password-restricted sessions, Solomon said.
Despite the hassles, he views the congregation’s embrace of technology as a way of keeping community as “one spark of holiness” in an otherwise utterly bleak situation.
Judah Segal and his wife, Nina, also will host a virtual Seder on the first night of the eight-day holiday. They had been looking forward to having 20 people at their Raleigh home for this year’s event, including two of their three children.
Instead, they alone will eat from the Seder plate at the dining room table, but will be connected via Zoom to dozens of others across six time zones, including one couple in Israel.
The Segals, who attend Temple Beth Or and another local synagogue, will miss the human contact of a “normal” Passover. But the couple is coordinating with others who will be in on the call so that it includes all the elements: blessings before and after the meal, the hiding and finding of the matzo with children who are on the call, the sampling of the foods, and the first-person reading the story of Jewish enslavement and liberation.
According to the Bible, God freed the Israelites by sending 10 plagues to the people of Egypt, the last being the death of every first-born son. Jewish families were instructed to stay home and mark their doors with lamb’s blood so the curse would pass over them.
Segal knows that celebrating a digital Passover will not be the same as being together in person with others in the faith.
“In the Jewish tradition, showing up is really nine-tenths of it,” Segal said in a phone interview. “For example, when, God forbid, someone dies and you go the person’s home. You’re there with the loved ones. What do you say?
“I mean, no one knows what to say. At the end of the day, you don’t have to say anything. By your presence you are saying, ‘I care about you. You are an important person to me.’
Connecting in a time of solitude
Rabbi Lev Cotlar of the Chabad Center of Raleigh said his congregation will hold to tradition this Passover, eschewing electronics on the holiday.
“But we’re encouraging people to connect with others as much as possible in the days leading up to it,” he said by phone. He’s asking congregants to look out especially for widows, widowers, the elderly — anyone who is likely to feel especially alone or isolated right now.
“Call them,” he said. “Ask them, ‘What can we do to make this Passover a little more comforting and meaningful in these times?’”
Cotlar said that his congregation has been making the most of the move to digital, with Torah classes, Hebrew school and even a cooking demonstration. It’s hard, he said, to lose access to the synagogue when it plays such a central part in faith. But it just puts that much more emphasis on the home, which is the other major destination in the Jewish landscape, he said.
“It’s not like Judaism is on vacation or hiatus,” Cotlar said. “It’s only that the venue has shifted.”
No one would ever ask for a pandemic, but like other faith leaders, Cotlar said he has been looking for silver linings and has seen at least one. The increased solitude, he said, “Is a good time to reconnect with God.”
Solomon, of Beth Or, said the forced separation might, ironically, bring about a different kind of connection between people.
“The big theme, the story of Passover, is the story of our enslavement and our suffering and how we respond in difficult times, in challenging moments,” he said. “If the Jewish people have a PhD in something, it’s suffering and resilience and overcoming. We didn’t ask for that, but it’s part of our history. We do have a lot to offer here.
“It’s aiming for a sense of gratitude, even in the midst of challenge. Can we stay grateful? It does allow us to reveal in ourselves an ability to rise to the occasion, and see how we can help others. It heightens our ability to be compassionate and notice others who are suffering,” such as those who are sick or have lost family members to COVID-19, or those who have lost jobs because of it.
“We have tasted the bitterness,” Solomon said, “and therefore, we don’t want others to have bitterness.”
Passover ends with a wish, Solomon noted, that comes from the ancient hope of Jewish people to return to “the homeland.” The phrase, “Next year in Jerusalem” is a prayer that when Passover comes around again, celebrants will meet there.
“It’s a message of hope,” Solomon said. “This year we’re slaves, but next year we will be free.”
This story was originally published April 7, 2020 at 6:06 PM.
