4 | OCTOBER 21 • 2021 

PURELY COMMENTARY

essay

Why ‘Zoom Judaism’ will Fade,
and Synagogues will Thrive
W

hat will Jewish 
life be post-pan-
demic?
Jews will run back to the 
synagogue. They will not 
drift back; they will run back.
Yes, adjust-
ments will be 
made: The 
Jewish commu-
nal world will 
rethink the need 
for large facil-
ities and will 
reduce infra-
structure costs. Digital tools 
will be more important.
Synagogue and JCC mem-
berships will be somewhat 
smaller. And Zoom worship 
will remain a fixture for 
those who need it (Virtual 
worship has made the syna-
gogue more accessible, and 
that is a blessing).
During the pandemic, the 
Jewish community needed 
to be more resourceful — 
and it was. We needed to 
make use of technology in 
a sophisticated way, and we 
did. As a result, our Judaism 
is more hybrid, inclusive and 
creative. 
But what we have learned, 
more than anything else, is 
how much we miss tactile, 
face-to-face Judaism. Zoom 
Judaism is wonderfully con-
venient, but alas, it is also, 
ultimately, religiously unful-
filling and terribly isolating.
And precisely because 
some of what we have been 
doing during the pandemic 
will be permanent — many, 
many Jews will spend more 
time working at home — not 
5 days a week but 2 or 3 
days a week — the in-person 
dimension of synagogue life 

will become that much more 
important. 
The communal aspect of the 
synagogue is the beating heart 
of our Jewish experience. 
Absent community, Judaism 
survives barely, if at all; our 
ritual is barren, our worship 
withers, and we struggle to 
study Torah. Better death than 
solitude, the rabbis teach — o 
chavruta, o mituta.
This is hardly a new 
insight, of course, but in the 
last half century, it is some-
thing that has become more 
and more apparent. Most 
American Jews no longer 
live in Jewish neighbor-
hoods. They no longer have 
grandparents who live down 
the block and who are there 
for Jewish holidays and for 
babysitting.
In this new American real-
ity, despite endless moaning 
about the inadequacies of 
congregations, the synagogue 
has become more important 
than ever. It is there that Jews 
find the community that they 
have been missing, help in 
raising their children, and 
the sense of holiness that 
community fosters.

And the pandemic, inter-
estingly, has made us appre-
ciate the synagogue in ways 
that we did not before. We 
see now more clearly than 
before that it is the syna-
gogue that enables us to find 
religious support in a lonely 
world.
It is often the only place 
that always cares about you 
as an individual and where, 
if you are not there, someone 
misses you. It is the one place 
where no one suffers alone or 
grieves alone. 

LIMITATIONS OF ‘VIRTUAL’
But community cannot truly 
flourish if it is virtual. It can-
not, no matter how many 
times experts tell you it can.
We know this from the 
data: four in 10 U.S. adults 
had developed symptoms 
of depression or anxiety by 
the end of 2020, the year 
of doing things online. 
According to the UCLA 
Loneliness Scale (which is 
the gold standard of such 
things), 61% of Americans 
are measurably lonely. No 
matter how many Zoom ses-
sions we may have, virtual 

experiences leave us isolated, 
and isolation is not our natu-
ral state.
The net can offer infor-
mation, novelty, a variety of 
fleeting attachments and an 
outlet for passionate political 
opinions. But it cannot offer 
meaningful friendship, real 
community or vibrant and 
authentic Judaism.
And we know this too 
from Martin Buber. In the 
mid-20th century, he pre-
sciently warned us to beware 
of television, computers and 
technological aids when we 
thought about how to edu-
cate the young and pass on 
Judaism to others.
Such things, he said, could 
convey information, but the 
essence of Jewish education 
and transmission is the direct 
bond between teacher and 
student and what one person 
learns from another.
What all this means is that 
when the pandemic is over, 
the synagogue, if it seizes 
the opportunity, will thrive 
as never before. It will be 
uniquely positioned to offer a 
Judaism that will be desper-
ately needed and personally 
transformative, built on face-
to-face encounters.
God insisted on meeting 
with Moses panim el panim, 
face to face. And if Jews 
of the synagogue wish to 
retrieve the Jewish soul from 
oblivion and unveil life’s fun-
damental holiness, they will 
do as God did — practicing 
Judaism face to face, and not 
on the screen. 

Eric Yoffie is the former president of 

the Union for Reform Judaism (1996 

to 2012). This essay was first pub-

lished by Brandeis University.

Eric Yoffie

COURTESY OF BRANDEIS

This will be a socially distanced event. Masks required.

*This event is free, but please bring a food donation to 
benefit Gleaners Community Food Bank.

To celebrate our brand-new assisted living and memory care 

community, we’re hosting a Fall Festival on the grounds 

of our future setting, opening in early 2022. 

Fun for the whole family includes:

 
 Pony rides 

 
 Live petting zoo 

 
 Balloon animals

 
 Complimentary food trucks

 
 Yummy s’mores 

 
 Hot cider 

 
 Giveaways and prizes* 

 
 Fresh homemade donuts

